


Sozo

by despommes



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Facials, Found Family, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, Oral Sex, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-01-26 12:17:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 29
Words: 168,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21374026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/despommes/pseuds/despommes
Summary: Definition:1. to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction2. to save a suffering one (from perishing), i.e. one suffering from disease, to make well, heal, restore to health3. to preserve one who is in danger of destruction, to save or rescue
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Hector, Alucard/Hector (Castlevania)
Comments: 273
Kudos: 500





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: graphic depictions of sexual assault and abuse
> 
> I personally see Hector to be on the autism spectrum. Based on what can be gathered from the show, I think it would be prudent to label him high-functioning, possibly fitting into the Asperger's profile. I realize that is no longer considered a valid diagnosis, but several specialist still use it to categorize. I myself have never been diagnosed on the spectrum and I will do my best to adequately research the experiences of people with autism as respectfully as possible.
> 
> I'm hopping on to the Castlevania train pretty late, I know. And just as a disclaimer, I have never played any of the games. I've only watched the Netflix series so that's the universe in which this story takes place and that's what I'll be using as reference material.
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: graphic depictions of sexual assault and abuse in this chapter
> 
> Just gonna come right out and say it: this chapter is rough. A few subsequent chapters may also be rough. Skip them if you need to! I promise eventually there will be a happy ending but things are going to get difficult before they get soft.

He should have jumped in the river.

_ Fool_. The word echoes in his ears. He could hear it in the hooting of owls from the tree line. It reverberates with each thud of his feet in the mud. It chimes with every _ clink _ of the chain to the collar newly clamped around his neck. _ Fool, _ the metal sings mockingly with every step. _ Fool, fool, fool. _

He never should have followed Carmilla out of the castle. He should have stayed, confessed, owned up to his own folly and taken his chances with Dracula. Whatever the consequences of Dracula’s ire, had it been a swift death at the man’s own hands or by the steel of Carmilla’s soldiers, there would have been honesty in it. Dignity. Honor. Dracula would never have _ collared _ him.

He’s been walking all night navigating horse shit and puddles and his boots are completely soaked through, caked in mud both fresh and dried. They are thankfully still intact, though for how much longer Hector is unsure. They had been meant for decorum, not travel. The bones in his feet _ throb _ with each beat of his heart. There are blisters forming on his toes and his heels, rubbed raw with every step and threatening to split open. His calves and thighs ache with the strain of trudging through the rain-softened road. Each time he wavered from their set pace, each time he slowed, the chain was yanked so that his head jerked with it. He suspects Carmilla takes pleasure in pulling him along like the dog she likened him to, even if she never turns around to make sure he complies.

An hour or two before sunrise, they stop. Hector nearly stumbles to his knees, so lost is he in the focus of trying to keep himself moving. The road was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t even noticed that they had deviated from the path but now they are in the middle of a grassy clearing, surrounded on all sides by dense forest. This must have been where they were stopping for the daylight hours. Carmilla gracefully dismounts her horse. Her three armored escorts follow suit. She waves her hand lazily at them.

“Set up the tents. And do be quick about it. I am in _ desperate _ need of a bath.”

The soldiers move to comply. In a matter of minutes two tents are erected, a large standing one he can only assume is for Carmilla and a smaller, squatter one for her guards.

There is not a third tent for him.

She hands the end of the chain leash off to one of her men. “Find somewhere to put him,” she says disinterestedly. “Under a tree, perhaps. It believe it might rain.”

Hector looks up at the dark sky. She seems to be right. There are clouds moving in, quickly blotting out the dimming stars overhead. The smell of oncoming rain is beginning to creep up on them, the damp air seeping into the gaps between his clothes. He shivers.

The guard tugs at the chain as he leads Hector to a large, tall tree not far from the camp. He hammers a stake into the trunk of it, through one of the links, and then ties the remaining length into a makeshift knot. Hector watches him. The vampire takes off his helm to better see his handiwork, revealing dark hair knotted at the back of his skull and a complexion that, in life, could have been olive hued. It would have been possible to say he was handsome, but in his current situation Hector is loathe to do the man any favors. He turns indignantly away from him as he is essentially tied to the tree, hands still bound in front of him.

Hector sits while he is being secured and grimaces at the feeling of wet grass underneath his clothes. He watches the camp for activity. Another soldier is making trips to a nearby river with a large basin, presumably gathering water for Carmilla’s requested bath. Hector swallows. His tongue pokes thirstily at the inside of his cheeks, and he wonders how much rainwater he could catch in his mouth from underneath the tree. At least, he thinks, he is no longer on his feet.

A hand tugs at the slack on the chain. Hector’s neck goes with it and it is all he can do to catch himself before he falls flat on his face. The grass itches underneath his fingers. The vampire guard leers down at him from where he hovers in a squat next to the tree. Hector stares. The man’s bloody red eyes roam his face with an expression he can’t read. Hunger, potentially. He could imagine how easy it would be for him to rip his throat out even with the collar, tear into his skin and drink until he was dry. He is also entirely certain Carmilla would kill him for it. Cruel, and calculated. Like she did all things.

But the guard does not sink his fangs into him. No, he simply keeps looking at him, appraising him like he were a hieffer up at auction. Hector fights down the urge to squirm under his gaze. To his surprise a gauntlet clad hand reaches out for him, so quickly he doesn’t even have time to flinch. Fingers grasp at his chin and lift his face up. It strains his neck at an odd angle. The collar digs into the back of his skull.

Slowly, the guard drags his thumb over Hector’s bottom lip.

Bewildered, Hector jerks away. He sits up, backing against the bark of the tree. He wants very badly to turn and wipe his lips against his sodden sleeve but instead he holds the guard’s gaze, puzzled. The man scoffs at him. He makes to stand up.

“Creepy little fuck.”

An armored boot lands a solid kick into Hector’s ankle. He _ yelps_. He curls in on himself and reaches down to squeeze the aching knob of bone, teeth clenched in pain. The soldier makes his way back to the camp and leaves Hector to wonder whether or not he should be expecting another beating before the sun rises.

Pain radiates from every corner of his body. Kicked and bruised ribs scream against his lungs. His wrists have been all but scraped raw by the rough hempen rope that binds them. From the swollen eye and split lip to his ragged and exhausted feet, it all seems to gather to a point in his chest. Each pump of blood his heart pours through his body is laced with the ache of it. Eventually, he manages to doze. The pain will make it nearly impossible to truly fall asleep but he will attempt to take respite in rest while he can.

He can’t have drifted off for long. When his eyes next open, the sun has still not made an appearance. No rain has fallen yet. Slowly, as his senses return, he realizes it was the sound of footsteps weighted with plate armor that had roused him. Two of the soldiers, the one who had staked the chain to the tree and one whose face he did not recognize, are slowly walking towards him. The dark-haired man is taking off his gauntlets.

“I doubt very highly,” Hector grouses, “that your mistress will take kindly to my being _ damaged_.”

He knows the words will do little to stave off the beating that is most definitely fast approaching. He simply hoped to remind them, in no uncertain terms, that his usefulness to Carmilla is paramount. And he doubted how useful he would be to her after having been bludgeoned to death.

The dark-haired guard laughs. It raises the hair on the back of Hector’s neck. “Oh, I don’t think she’ll mind if we rough you up a bit.” If snakes could speak, Hector thinks, it would be with this man’s voice. It is oily and low, dark and entirely devoid of humanity. Like pitch.

Truthfully, Hector was unsure just how much more roughing he could endure. Cracked ribs very easily became broken ribs. Broken ribs were notorious for breaking through skin, or puncturing lungs. Out here in the wilderness, miles away from any form of healing, his chances of surviving were slim.

He tenses as the guards drew closer, close enough that they have to duck under the tree’s low-hanging branches. The unfamiliar soldier has a plain face and a clean-shaven head. And he is _ large_. A hand reaches out to grab him by the front of his shirt, pulls him so that the chain grows taught. He is slammed back against the ground so hard his head spins. He coughs as the wind is knocked from him, arms raised to shield his face from the blow he knows will follow. But it does not come.

One of them begins to pull at his clothes.

Confused, Hector sits very still. Breathes harshly through his mouth. The dark-haired guard pats over his front as though he is searching for something, but he can’t imagine what. He had no money with him, no weapons hidden on his person. Surely they knew that by now.

“W-what are you doing?”

He asks the question genuinely. His brows furrow when they laugh at him, as though the whole situation were a joke he was not privy to. Panic wells flighty and raw in his chest as he racks his brain for whatever it is about this he is missing. It is a feeling he is used to, has known all his life, and yet the consequences had never seemed more dire.

The fingers roaming his person land upon the clasp of his trousers. It is wrenched apart, the delicate metal pieces of the mechanism flying into the darkness.

All the blood drains from his face.

He had expected to be beaten. Had expected to be starved. Expected to be deprived of water and sleep. These were all things he had survived before as a child whose parents bore him no love. This… this had never crossed his mind. It should have.

_ Fool, _ the chain sang to him. _ Fool, fool, fool. _

“No,” he hisses. “Stop. Stop it! Get your hands off me!”

He kicks out at them, manages to catch the bigger one in the shoulder. His legs are weak from walking in the mud for hours, and it seemingly does little in the way of damage. Hector tries to twist over on his side and crawl away. A hand latches around his ankle. Pulls him back. He shouts as he is dragged along his damaged ribs. Coughs with the recoil of his lungs.

“Not really in any position to be making demands, are you, forgemaster?”

He lifts his head to peer out into the darkness. The stark white of a tent glares back at him through the violet haze of early, early morning.

“Carmilla!” he shrieks. “Carmilla! Carmilla, help!”

That stills the men above him. He stares at the tent, eyes wide. For several long, agonizing moments there is no movement. Hector holds his breath. He prays, begs her to come out, and just as it seems his pleads for her fall on deaf ears the flap of the tent swings open. Carmilla emerges as a ghostly figure in the surrounding black, clad in a long, white, silken robe. Hector tries to inch towards her but the hand around his ankle squeezes, painfully tight, and he whimpers. The air seems to grow colder as she makes her way towards them and when she is finally close enough for him to see her eyes they are steely with barely contained fury.

“What,” she breathes, “the _ fuck _ is this?”

“Carmilla,” Hector warbles pitifully. “Help me, please.” His fingers tangle themselves in the hem of her robes. He is shaking in earnest now.

Her face softens. It catches him so off guard he nearly sobs. “Oh, Hector, puppy,” she coos. She bends at the waist and tenderly strokes his cheek with the back of her hand. The gesture is almost gentle but he winces all the same. It was the same cheek that had caught her first blow mere hours ago.

“Please.” He meets her eyes and holds her gaze the best he can. “Don’t let them touch me, I _ beg _ you, _ please_.” She tilts her head, red lips drawn into a pensive expression. “I’m… I’ve never—”

There is a flash of something sinister in her eyes. It freezes the words in his mouth and he instantly knows he has made a mistake. “Hector,” she gasps, as though she has just learned the most delicious secret. “Are you a virgin?”

Silence follows in the wake of her question. He gapes at her, mouth open in disbelief. It appears that is answer enough for her. She straightens herself to stand over him. Rips her robe out of his hands. “Carmilla,” he murmurs. “_Please._”

“Don’t touch his face, and keep your teeth to yourselves,” she barks at her men. As she turns to leave, she looks back over her shoulder. “And for god’s sake, Miron, if you’re going to fuck him at least _ gag _ him first so the rest of us don’t have to hear him bleating like a stuck goat.”

“Of course,” he hears the dark-haired soldier respond. Miron. “Apologies, my lady.”

“Wait!” Hector screams after her. She does not turn around. He calls her name again as she disappears into her white tent, and when he opens his mouth to shout once more he is forcibly wrenched over on to his back. With the pressure taken off his ribs he gasps for air. Something is forced past his lips. A sodden wad of cloth. It tastes of dust and horse. Hector gags. He readies his tongue to spit it out but a swathe of fabric is wedged between his teeth. His sash, he realizes, the one he wore belted around his waist. He moans pitiably. The sound is muffled against the gag.

Miron rolls him over on his stomach. Hector tries to squirm away again, clawing at the grass. He pulls up handfuls of it as he struggles. Dirt gathers under his nails. He feels one of them split.

His trousers are yanked over his backside, down his legs to tangle around his calves. It makes it infinitely harder to kick. Miron’s fingers curl over the lip of his collar. “On your knees,” he says, and Hector shakes his head. Refusing. He will _ not _ make this easier for them. It earns him a dark laugh. “All right then.”

He _ yanks _ and Hector chokes as the metal digs into his windpipe. It drags his neck up and the rest of his body follows, forcing him to his knees. He slumps forward when he is let go. His head lurches. There are black spots swirling behind his eyes that have nothing to do with the lack of sunlight. The urge to vomit twists somewhere in the pit of his stomach and he wills it down, lest he aspirate. Not that there would be much for his body to bring up anyway.

They say something to each other. Disoriented and dizzy as he is Hector can’t make it out. There’s the sound of armor being moved, of laces running over linen. A hand covers his face, pushing his head into the grass. Restraining him. Claws dig into the side of his hip until it feels like they reach bone.

The pain of being penetrated is _ shattering_. Hector has set his own broken bones, stitched together his own wounds, survived beatings that should have killed him, and yet nothing he has lived through could hope to compare. It robs his lungs of their air, holds them captive as he struggles to breathe. Tears spring forth at his eyes. He trembles as he tries to remember how to inhale, how to think, how to do anything but lie paralyzed in this limbo of sick agony. His assailant withdraws and his chest expands, drawing in air, and when the pain returns Hector _ screams_.

The world narrows down to the push and pull of the body behind him. Each thrust is a brand new hell in itself. Hector shuts his eyes against the onslaught. As time passes, Miron’s dry, jerky movements even out, more fluid but no less excruciating. As Hector breathes in through his nose he realizes it is because the way is being eased by blood. It drips down the back of his thighs and over his knees, a warm and sticky stream that makes his skin crawl.

They _ laugh _ at him. Each time he whimpers, each time he squirms beneath Miron’s weight the sound of their mirth follows. They say disgusting, degrading things to and about him but he can barely hear it. The words are drowned out by the panic that screeches between his ears at the smell of his own blood in the air.

It ends with a long, satisfied noise from Miron that makes Hector’s insides roil. He shuts his eyes, wills for that to be the end, for them to leave him under his tree and retreat from the oncoming dawn. He hears someone shuffling about on their knees. His sash is untied from around his head and he spits out the wad of cloth, gulping down great gasps of air.

“She wants him _ gagged_,” he hears Miron mutter, and then there are claws tugging through his hair. They pull at his scalp, forcing him to look up.

The larger guard stares down at him.

“Oh, I’ll gag him all right.”

Hector’s teeth grind as he clenches his jaw.

He struggles against the hand in his hair. The iron grip holds him still, and the guard reaches for his own breeches. Hector shuts his eyes. He refuses to look, refuses to watch. He will not do this. They’ll have to kill him first.

“If I feel your teeth, boy,” the soldier drawls, “I’ll make myself a necklace of them.”

His neck is forced to bend. He holds his lips tightly closed. Fingers pinch to hold his nose and he _ thrashes_. What if he simply did not breathe? What if he let himself be deprived of oxygen and black out? Would that spare him from this ordeal? _ Unlikely_. They could wake him. Or not.

Seconds tick by until they seem to stretch on for minutes. Hyperbole, most likely, but without air Hector is unable to keep track. Self-preservation instinct eventually wrenches control of his diaphragm right out of his grasp and he curses himself, curses his traitorous lungs when he opens to suck in a labored breath. Dirty fingers hook over the row of his bottom teeth and _ god_, he wants to snap his jaws shut, to bite the digits clean from the hand they sit upon but the earlier threat still sits weightily in the back of his mind. His jaws are prised open and cold, unyielding flesh slides against his tongue. Hector instantly begins to retch, mind and body rejecting the intrusion with every cell, but the guard fits himself deeper into his mouth until he is sure he is going to suffocate. It’s in his throat, he realizes, and he tries to scream again.

His skull is dragged back and forth over the organ, and he heaves with each pass. He tries to cough around it, to breathe in as much air as he can between withdrawals but it is never enough. Eventually his choking and gagging trigger his nose to bleed. The acrid taste of blood sits heavy and vile on his tongue even as it dribbles down over his lips and chin, mixing with involuntary tears and bubbling saliva. He wonders what will kill him first: lack of oxygen or drowning in his own blood? He keeps his eyes firmly closed all the while.

The bald guard tenses and it is over with a low groan. Hector whimpers as his tongue is coated in thick, bitter liquid that is revoltingly cold. He is lucky the soldier chooses that moment to pull away and drop his head to the ground because bile races up the back of his throat before he can hold it back. The vampire’s spend leaves him in a thin, viscous stream tinted pink with blood. Hector groans against the saliva pooling in his mouth. The taste _ lingers_.

They leave him, bleeding, half-dressed, and writhing next to a puddle of his own sick. There are morning birds beginning to chirp in the woods around him, but he cannot hear. There is little that can wind its way past the ringing that fills his ears, the thud of his own heart as he tries, fails, to process what has just happened to him. Tremors rattle through his limbs as he moves to pull his trousers back up to cover himself. The clasp is broken beyond repair, and he will have to tie his sash around the waist to keep them up. Hector curls in on himself amidst the tree roots and begs, pleads to fall asleep.

Rain begins to fall in fat, cold drops.

He should have jumped into the river. He should have drowned.

There is no sunlight that day. It rains until sundown. In any other circumstances he would have found the sound soothing, but as he shivers on the frigid ground he just wishes he were dry. Hector drifts in and out of consciousness, never truly sleeping. The aches in his body leak into his hazy half-dreams. When he is woken, the sun has already made its descent and the air is even colder. A different guard rattles the chain against his collar to bring him to. She throws him a heel of hard bread and a waterskin, then turns to dislodge the stake from the tree. He devours the bread, even if it does taste two days stale, and drinks until he thinks he might be sick again. When he is finished the guard takes it back and tucks it into her belt.

“Get up,” she snaps at him.

Hector tries, he does. The cold that had settled into his limbs has left him stiff, and after he stumbles for the third time trying to stand the soldier rolls her eyes. She jerks him to his feet and he cries out at the sudden movement. It jostles every single ache in his body at once and for a moment his vision swims in great spinning clouds of black. The amount of strength it takes to follow her to Carmilla and her horse is gargantuan.

“Ah, Hector.” Carmilla’s voice stings at him like a viper’s bite. “How did you sleep, darling?”

He glares at her with red-rimmed, miserable eyes and says nothing. She tuts him, tugs him closer to pet at his damp and frizzy hair. He stiffens at the scratch of her claws against his scalp.

“Oh, don’t be that way,” she laughs. “We’ve a long journey ahead of us. Let’s not start off on a sour note.”

He simply can’t keep up with the horses. Nevermind the blisters on his feet, the ache in his calves or the throbbing in his temples. Pain wraps itself around his tailbone like a parasitic vine to a tree, winding up his spine to dig itself into his nerves. Each step is hell. An hour into their renewed journey, Carmilla must tire of tugging at the chain because she calls for them to stop. When she dismounts her horse Hector can feel the panic rising up behind his breastbone. She descends upon him and he flinches, arms raised to deflect a blow.

“For fuck’s sake, Hector, did they _ maim _ you?”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her.

“My patience is being very sorely tried this evening.” She hisses the words at him, her chilly breath puffing against his face. She pulls him closer and he gasps. “You walk like an arthritic pig begging for the axe. It seems as though you’ll have to ride if we want to make it to Styria before the damned _ snows _ come for us.”

He gulps. “I…”

Clearly not expecting any sort of retort, Carmilla’s eyes narrow at him. His words die in his mouth. “What is it now?” she says.

“I don’t…” Hector whimpers, his tongue stumbling against his teeth. “I don’t think I can ride.”

She stares at him. Slowly, her lips curl into a delighted smirk, and she begins to laugh. Hector can feel the heat rising in his face. Shame curls in his gut.

“Hector.” She twists a lock of his hair around her fingers. “Puppy.” When she pulls, it forces his ear closer to her mouth so she can whisper lowly to him. “If you cannot walk, and you cannot ride, then you will be dragged. Which is it going to be?”

“I…” She looks expectantly at him. He has no choice. “I’ll ride.”

The relief that floods his chest at the comforting smile she grants him _ frightens _ him. She releases his hair, brushes her thumb over his cheekbone. “Good boy. You can ride with Miron.”

“Wait—”

Carmilla turns her back to him. She tosses the chain up to the armored figure on the horse behind her own. Hector backs away, tries to put some distance between himself and his jailor but he is yanked back by his leash. Miron grabs at the back of his shirt and hoists him up. He lands harshly upon the horse’s back in the front of the saddle. The impact makes him yelp. As the horses once again begin to move he has to bite the inside of his cheek to swallow down the instinctive urge to cry out. He bites so hard he tastes blood.

The leash is pulled taught so that he has no choice but to lean back against Miron. He holds his breath as his skin crawls. Icy fingers worm their way under the hem of his clothes and, as they stroke themselves over the gouges in his hip, Hector stares straight ahead into the darkness.

_ Fool, _ the chain sings to him. _ Fool, fool, fool. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please please please god I'm begging for feedback. I love reading comments they literally make my day.


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: graphic depictions of sexual assault and abuse in this chapter
> 
> This chapter is also rough going. Please skip if you feel the need to.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for you feedback on the last chapter! I really appreciate it.
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Hector never anticipated he would yearn so for the light of the sun.

Darkness was like unto a presence all its own in this place. He rises in pitch blackness, works by feeble candle light until his eyes ache with the strain of it, and falls asleep knowing that even as the sun rises outside the castle walls he will not be awake to acknowledge it. This Spartan, repurposed excuse for a forge had no windows. His forge in Dracula’s castle had had windows. He’d rarely had the chance to see them by the light of day, but he had often taken a moment to marvel at the vast expanse of the night sky. The glittering shroud of stars and the eerie light of the moon as it waxed and waned offered little in the way of warmth, but at least they had been beautiful. He had taken the sight for granted in those days. There was so much he had taken for granted.

The passage of time was now marked for him by the sound of a key in a lock. It jolts him awake in the evenings as the first batch of corpses is hauled in, startles him away from his work when he is brought his daily meal. It stirs him from a dead sleep at the daytime changing of the guard. The rhythm of footsteps down toward his end of the hall is enough to quicken his heart in his chest, be it the heavy clank of armored greaves, the modest patter of servants’ shoes, or the delicate click of heeled slippers. It chills him to the bone to hear them stop outside the door. When the mechanism turns in the lock he trembles like a frightened mouse.

The beatings are as brutal as they are frequent. If he does not rise quickly enough from the flimsy cot they keep for him in the corner of the forge, he is beaten. If his work is not up to standard, he is beaten. If he talks back, he is beaten. If Carmilla is in a particularly _ foul _ mood, he is beaten. The gruesome laundry list of his injuries only grows longer with each passing week: poorly healed ribs that ache when he breathes, broken fingers that tremble around the grip of his hammer, hairline fractures in his feet, bruised kidneys that have him pissing blood for days, a split lip that is reopened on a nearly daily basis, a dislocated shoulder he has to pop back into place himself, and a lingering crick in his neck from the constant _ yank _ of the collar around his throat. The pain is almost an entity in itself, one he wrestles with in his every waking moment. It is a wonder he has not yet been _ crippled_.

As excruciating as it is to live under the constant and justified threat of the next beating, he would gladly take that over the visitors that slip unwelcome into his room while he sleeps.

Hector is petrified of Miron. And Carmilla knows it. He is positive that is why she handed the responsibility of his captivity over to him. It is Miron who decides when, or if, Hector receives his meals, Miron who determines whether or not the creatures he forges are adequate, _ Miron _ who dispenses most of the blows to his flesh. The guard has a fixation for Hector that he couldn’t, didn’t _ want _ to understand, and he takes no small amount of pleasure in toying with Carmilla’s pet forgemaster.

The first time he is raped in the castle is nearly a week after he first arrives. A week had been long enough to instill some sense of complacency in him; long enough for him to naïvely think that the incident on the road had been a singular occurrence. Looking back, he had been an idiot for thinking that would be the end of it. It stings all the worse when he is wrenched from fitful, hard-won sleep by one of Miron’s hands forced over his mouth and the other tearing at the rags he wears. Hector instinctively fights back, biting at the palm over his lips in his panic, and he _ pays _ for it. It earns him a swift fist to the underside of his jaw, and then the world is spinning amidst the darkness as he goes limp under the heavy body above him. He groans with the vertigo of being rolled over onto his stomach as his brain attempts to regain some sort of balance.

“You and I are going to be good friends, forgemaster,” Miron hisses into his ear. Hector grits his teeth, his sore jaw aching under the force of it.

“Go to hell!” he grinds out, trying to dodge the hand pushing his face into the sheets. Miron laughs at him as he forces his legs apart. It is a cruel sound, one that makes him shiver like someone has ripped him open and dumped a bucket of ice straight into the cage of his ribs.

“Ah, so the puppy does bark.”

Hector’s screams are muffled into his pillow.

More often than not it _ is _ Miron that wakes him. Twice it is the same large, bald guard from before, and both times feel as though he is being split in two. Once it is a skinny soldier with dark eyes that he’s never seen before. He leaves a mural of bruises and bite marks that trail from Hector’s cheek to his throat, and when Carmilla had seen it she’d been _ incensed_. He does not see that guard again.

Each time leaves him more broken than the last. He never sleeps in the aftermath, not even after Miron leaves and the door is locked after him. Hector would spend the next few hours swallowing down the pain and swallowing down the sobs that well like poison at the base of his throat. They can take what they want from him, take from his body and his hands and his dignity, but they will _ not _ have his tears. Not while he still draws breath.

Once, he finally decides he has had enough.

They don’t feed him that night. Punishment for the declining quality in his work, he is sure, but he can’t bring himself to care. Miron had paid him a visit the night before and he is _ sore _ from it. The deep gouges he likes to leave in Hector’s hips with his claws burn underneath his clothes as he swings the hammer to the forge. There had been no sleep for him after. He is hungry, exhausted, and in pain and the sound of the lock being turned stills him where he stands. Hector does not even have to turn to see who it is. He knows it just from the sound of jingling of keys hanging around his visitor’s neck. He has a few seconds to drop his hammer and brace himself before the collar is tugged, forcing his head back. Cold breath blows past the shell of his ear.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this,” Miron says with the same dark, eerily level voice that haunts Hector in his nightmares, “but your mistress is less than pleased with the beasts you’ve been forging for her of late.”

Hector swallows around his dry tongue. “Perhaps if I were not being starved they might be up to her standards.”

“Good pets are rewarded when they behave as they’re meant to.” A claw creeps underneath the lip of the collar. Hector shudders as the tip lazily scratches into the nape of his neck.

“I am _ trying_.” It is a lie and they both know it. He had once lived for his work. It had been all he cared about. Now, with the collar around his neck, it is his own personal hell. These beasts he molds for Carmilla are a pale imitation of the devils he’d brought to life for Dracula. They lack the same fire, the same driving force he’d imbued in the hordes crafted for the master he had chosen rather than the mistress who chained him. In truth, he pities these poor creatures. There is nothing behind their eyes. Hector is slowly giving up. And Carmilla can see it.

“There is no _ try _ here, you little worm.” He can feel Miron’s eyes examining the corpse he’d been in the midst of repurposing on his forging table. The body had once been that of a child. A small girl, her throat torn out so violently it had cleaved her shoulder clean from her collarbone. The blood had been drained from her as she’d died and Hector could tell she had suffered. Looking at her glassy eyes, her white lips, he begins to feel sick.

“Perhaps you require more incentive.”

Hector closes his eyes. His lower lip quivers as he tries to steel himself for what he knows will come next. Miron shoves his face against the work table, hard enough that a dull _ thwack _ rings through the room nearly as loudly as it does between Hector’s ears. He groans weakly at the impact. His hands sting against the rough stone.

“Don’t,” he moans pitiably. The word feels cold in his lungs. He wonders if Miron realizes just how hard he’d hit his head. “Miron, _ please_.” He knows the begging will only spur him on but Hector doesn’t know what else to do. He is still raw from the last time, practically still _ bleeding_, and he simply doesn’t have the strength for this. “I can’t—”

The rest of his words are robbed from him as his breeches are yanked down his thighs, raking against the gashes in his hips along the way. Miron forces his feet wide apart and buries himself inside. Hector screams, pleads for him to stop. His cheek scrapes against the stone with each thrust. Miron laughs darkly. His claws dig new trails in next to the old ones, healing and scarred, into the wings of his pelvis. Hector’s mouth hangs open in a silent cry. He stares ahead at the sight in front of him: the little girl’s pale, lifeless hand with her tiny and bloodless nails.

His hammer rests at the child’s feet.

It is then, starving, fatigued, and empty as he is being fucked over the body of some poor, dead child, that Hector decides he has had _ enough. _

Miron does not notice his fingers inching towards the grip of the hammer. For as long as he lives, Hector will never forget the look of utter shock on his face as he twists at the waist and swings. He catches Miron at the temple and his heart _ soars_. The resounding crack of bone beneath skin is exhilarating, almost as exhilarating as the enraged, garbled shout that is knocked from his mouth. Miron stumbles away from him and Hector falls to his knees. The hammer slips from his fingers as he goes down.

The realization that he did not swing hard enough to render the man unconscious creeps up the line of his spine like a spider. There simply had not been enough strength in his hunger-weakened limbs to put enough force behind the blow. When Miron gathers himself enough to fix him with infuriated, bloody eyes Hector knows his chances of surviving this ordeal have plummeted. There is a noticeable wound in his forehead, oozing thick blood. He watches, frozen, as the vampire kneels, reaches for his hammer on the ground.

He spits in Miron’s face just before the hammer comes down on his jaw.

When Hector next wakes, he is still prone on the forge floor and he is alone.

His hammer is nowhere to be found, as is the corpse with which he’d been working. Two very, very ill omens. If he was awake then he was meant to be at work, but an empty forge usually only meant one thing.

He should be expecting to see Carmilla soon.

His jaw _ throbs_. Tenderly, he presses against the side of his face with careful fingers to inspect the damage. The skin is hot under his palm. While there is significant swelling that makes it difficult to open his mouth, he can indeed move it. Not broken. But now his teeth sit crookedly against each other, the top and bottom molars no longer lining up when he rests them together.

Miron had left him only partially dressed. The persistent ache between his legs and the sticky, cold feeling lingering deep in his gut tell Hector that Miron had continued even after he’d knocked him out cold. Something squirms in his empty stomach and he scrambles across the room to get to the chamber pot under his cot. Saliva floods his aching mouth and Hector whimpers before he begins to retch in dry, shallow heaves. There is, of course, nothing for his body to bring up after two days of being denied anything to eat. All he manages is a pitiful mixture of bile and spit. It burns the back of his throat.

It feels like hours before his stomach settles. A servant brings him a tepid bath and it only confirms his suspicions. He was always made to bathe before Carmilla visited the forge. While normally he relishes the chance to clean himself, for some semblance of luxury in this otherwise bleak existence, Hector seriously considers drowning himself in the shallow water.

When he is as clean as he is going to get, he pulls his filthy clothes back on and climbs miserably into his bed. A servant comes to collect the bathwater and he does not even lift his head from his pillow. There is no point in wondering what it is Carmilla will do to him. She still needs him, so he will be kept intact enough to work the forge. She won’t _ kill _ him. That said, he has seen firsthand, experienced himself the cruelty she is capable of. He’s sure whatever punishment she has in store for him will be appropriately gruesome.

The lock turns in the door.

At once, Hector is on high alert. There had been no warning, no footsteps down the hall. He sits up in his bed. His arms are crossed protectively around his middle, knees drawn tight to his chest. He would have heard Carmilla or Miron and a servant would have announced themselves.

The door opens and it is so much more quiet than it normally is. Torchlight from the outside hallway stretches across the stone floor. He squints his eyes.

There is no one there.

Hector’s brow furrows. His heart hammers in his chest and he watches, bewildered, as the door swings closed, again strangely silent. The lock turns back into place.

He supposes he should have expected this hellhole of a castle would be _ haunted_.

For several moments he simply sits as still as possible. Waiting. Anticipating whatever this new phantom or poltergeist or whatever had planned next. There is a sound, like the fluttering of soft cloth. Suddenly the room is illuminated in ghostly blue light, a small wisp of teal-colored fire floating in the air. He winces at the intensity after so much time spent squinting in the light of a single candle. When his eyes adjust Hector looks about the room, terrified.

A pair of eyes stares back at him.

A cloaked woman stands at the side of his bed. A girl, really. The ball of light hovers in the palm of her hand as she holds it aloft. She pulls her hood back over her head to reveal a youthful face. Her cheeks are dimpled in a calm smile. As her eyes roam is face, though, the smile vanishes.

“I…” Her face draws into a puzzled expression, one that no doubt mirrors his own. “You are not…”

“Who are you?”

She startles at the question, as though she hadn’t been expecting him to speak. “I am sorry. I am looking for someone.”

“You need to leave.”

“Please.” She drops to her knees at his bedside. Hector shifts away from her as she draws closer. “Perhaps you know him? He is… I heard rumors there was a man here in this castle who could raise the dead.”

Hector stares at her.

“He is a friend of mine,” she goes on. “Small, like me, with dark hair.”

“I don’t know your friend. And as far as I’m aware, I am the only one in this castle who can raise the dead.”

He watches as her face draws up in the wake of his answer. She looks distraught, her lower lip wobbling a bit as she turns away from him. She covers her mouth with a palm. Hector silently hopes she is not about to cry.

What the _ fuck _ is happening?

The girl is quiet for a long time. She looks about the room, for what, he can’t tell. When her large eyes fall on him again they linger at his jaw. Hector wonders, a bit self-consciously, if it had begun to bruise.

“Are you hurt?” she asks, and before he can answer she is reaching for him. He panics. Ducks out of the way before she can touch his face, breathing hard. “I am sorry!” She backs away instantly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Please don’t touch me.”

“Of course. Again, I’m sorry.” Her eyes drop to the collar around his throat. She tilts her head in her palm. “Poor thing. Did Carmilla put that on you?”

“Yes,” he tells her, “and I’m not eager to find out what she will do to us both if she finds you in here.”

“She is in a meeting with her advisors. I doubt she will be out anytime soon.”

Hector blinks. “How do you know that?”

“We have been casing the castle for almost a week. Watching.”

“We?”

She ignores the question, opting instead to lean in for a closer look at his jaw. There is something… odd about her eyes. He can’t quite identify it, not in this light, but something is definitely not entirely right about them. “Poor thing,” she says again. “What is your name?”

“I…”

He is terrified to say anything more. It is entirely possible this is a trick. A trap Carmilla set for him to catch him in another act of rebellion. But, _ god_, this strange girl is the first to show him any form of kindness since before Braila and he is so, so tired. Tired and miserable and _ frightened_. If there is any chance the concern in her voice is genuine, he will reach for it with all he has.

“My name is Hector.”

“Hector.” She tries the name in her mouth. The airy, musical lilt of her accent wraps around the word like a spell. “A pleasure to meet you, Hector.” She holds her hand out to him, slowly. There are no claws at the ends of her nails. He drops his gaze to her outstretched palm. “I am Aria.”

Hector hesitates. She waits for him, offering him the same calm, patient smile from before.

He takes her hand.

“Hello, Aria.”

She softly squeezes his fingers. Her head turns toward the door then back to him, but not before he catches sight of a delicately pointed ear. She chews her lip for several moments as though she is deliberating something to herself. “Hector,” she says quietly. “Would you like to leave this place?”

Hector’s heart stops.

Tears flood his eyes. He clutches his flimsy bedclothes in his fingers so hard he fears the shoddy cloth may rip. “What?” he asks her in a small voice.

“Well…” She offers him another smile. “I cannot exactly leave you here, now can I? Not with her.”

“Yes,” he answers her. “I want to leave. Please.”

“Listen to me.” She stands. Takes his hand in hers again. “I cannot take you now. Give me some time to… make some arrangements. We will need help.”

“No.” Hector shakes his head, swallows the dry lump in his throat. “Please, _ please _ take me with you.” His voice cracks against the words and the tears welling in his eyes begin to fall. “Don’t… _ God_, please don’t leave me here.”

“I _ will _ come back for you.” Aria reaches out to him. She cups his face in her hands and Hector’s eyes slide shut at the gentleness of it. She carefully wipes the tear tracks from his cheeks. “I promise. I am not going to leave you here. Just please try to be patient.”

She gives his hand another soft squeeze, and he has only a brief moment to appreciate the warmth of her skin before the small blue light goes out. He gasps in surprise. Not long after, the door opens, closes, and locks itself. He is again alone, his own breathing loud in his ears. Hector sits for a long time in the dark with his wet eyes and his racing heart.

It had to have been a dream. The more time passes, the more convinced he is that _ none _ of that had just happened. He is concussed, still reeling from his head injury and this had been nothing more than a trauma-induced hallucination. As the hours tick by, the ache in his chest slowly starts to subside.

By the time he hears Carmilla’s heeled footsteps in the hall, his tears have long since dried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please please please leave me a comment to let me know what you thought.
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com).


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: graphic depictions of sexual assault and abuse in this chapter
> 
> Again, thank you to everyone who left comments! I really, really love reading them and your feedback means the world to me.
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

A week has passed since he dreamt of the girl with the strange, wide eyes and her hand filled with ghostly blue fire.

His jaw is a constant source of pain. The sensation of his misaligned teeth sitting awkwardly in his mouth is enough to set him on edge, and the headaches that follow are nothing short of _ debilitating_. They sit heavy at the base of his skull, a relentless, nagging pinch that tugs at his nerves. At best it is simply difficult to turn his head at a certain angle; at worst, his jaw locks up on its own accord. There are days he is completely unable to open his mouth. Ironic, really. They finally deign to feed him regularly and Hector can barely force himself to choke down enough of the disgusting, bland porridge he’s given to keep the gnawing ache in his stomach at bay.

They take his hammer when he is done working for the evening. Hector can’t even truly blame them for that. Were he allowed to keep it he doesn’t doubt for a second he would again attempt to cave Miron’s skull in the first at the first opportunity. Carmilla and her wrath be damned; the sound of the metal connecting with the vampire’s head lulls him to sleep every night. Where they keep it is it a mystery to him, but it always arrives with the first batch of corpses and is taken from him when the last of his creations is collected.

He was not expecting to feel so… _ lost _ without his hammer. For so long it had been an extension of himself, the tool by which he had defined his purpose as a devil forgemaster. He had designed it himself, had thoughtfully considered every detail from the weight of the head to the length of the grip. He’d mounted by hand the two coins he’s used as foci since childhood. To be left without it, to be deprived of the one thing in this place that was well and truly his _ own_… He might liken it to being crippled.

Despair is fast closing in on Hector. It dogs at his heels like a sad, beaten hound, nearer with each night he passes under the weight of his collar and chain. He wonders just how much longer he can endure like this; with the only thing he has to look forward to a life spent in perpetual darkness at the hands of monsters for masters.

Carmilla’s eyes rove over the hulking stature of his newest creature with no small amount of scrutiny. He had done the best he could, and while he was far from proud of his craftsmanship, there was a noticeable improvement compared to his previous work of late. Carmilla reaches up one long, crimson varnished claw to inspect the creature’s short, brutish muzzle. It simply gazes blankly back at her, glowing blue eyes passive and docile.

“This one is better,” she appraises, finally. A flicker of relief sputters in Hector’s gut, but it does little to quell the fear Carmilla’s very presence instills in him. Hector keeps silent, keeps still behind her while she continues to inspect his work. “An impressive size, as well, considering the raw materials that went into it.”

Hector swallows a thick mouthful of lukewarm saliva, desperately trying not to think about how many dead, mangled children have passed through the door of his forge in the past week.

“I can make any adjustments you think necessary,” he says in a small voice. “I had considered wings for air travel, but the frame would need to be considerably smaller—”

She cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now, forgemaster.” The hem of her gown twists at her feet as she turns to face him. She straightens it elegantly. “This sad little thing is far too scrawny. A runt. While undoubtedly an _ improvement _ from the pitiable forces you’ve supplied me with since you were brought here, I know you can do better. I’ve _ seen _ it.”

Carmilla advances toward him. Hector instinctively retreats a step back. He averts his eyes to the stone floor when she reaches for him with one finger, the sharp tip of her claw a point of lethal pressure just under his chin. He trembles at her touch.

“You’ll do better for me, won’t you, pet?”

He tries to keep his breathing calm, wills the heart hammering in his chest to slow. He can tell she could hear it from the smug half-smile on her painted lips. “I-I…” he stammers, his tongue a leaden weight in his mouth. “I will need more time. If I could have my hammer, I could work through the night and day—”

“Ah, ah, ah.” She tuts him, gives him a minute shake of her head. “You’ve lost that privilege, though, haven’t you?” Carmilla turns her head a fraction in Miron’s direction where the guard lingers dauntingly in front of the door. She spares him a mocking glance of her eyes. Miron visibly bristles at the blow to his pride. Hector holds his gaze defiantly, relishing the humiliation and rage he finds there. He will pay for the blatant display of insubordination later, he knows, but for now it is _ exhilarating_. Miron bares long, menacing teeth at him. Something dark and satisfied quivers between his ribs.

“A moment, please, Miron.”

Carmilla’s airy voice cuts through the tension between them. Miron blinks at her back. For a moment it looks as though he means to say something in rebuttal, but thinks better of it at the last second.

“Of course, my lady.” He bows for her. “I will be just outside, should you need me.”

“Yes, whatever.”

Miron shoots Hector another furious, foreboding look before he disappears behind the heavy wooden door. When he is gone, Carmilla sighs.

“As much as I enjoy seeing an arrogant man emasculated,” she tells him, “you know you’re simply making things more difficult for yourself, goading him the way you do.”

Hector looks dejectedly past her and says nothing.

“Hector.”

She touches his face. He closes his eyes against the smooth chill of her fingers. They glide over his gaunt face, curling just underneath the lobe of his ear. Her thumb slowly strokes over the jut of his cheekbone. Hector trembles; he wonders if she can smell the fear sitting cloying and heavy at the back of his tongue.

_ Her hands icy and stinging on his skin as the air struggles like a living thing in and out of his throat with the gooseflesh trailing in the wake of her bloody nails and the tears sliding molten and humid under the lip of the collar and god, Jesus, _ god_, he wishes it would just fucking HURT _

“I need better from you, Hector.”

He nods. Winces at the press of her thumb to the aching hinge of his jaw.

“You can do better than this, can’t you, puppy?”

His airway feels as though it is slowly closing in on itself. Hector swallows down the whimper trying to claw its way past his teeth. He wants to retch, to fall to his knees and curl up and into himself on the floor. He wants to _ hide_.

_ You’ll be good for me, won’t you? _

_ “Yes,” _ he breathes.

She smiles. It is loud in the silence of the still forge. Carmilla tilts his head towards her. The cool press of her lips is deceptively sweet, gentle even on his cheek, yet the unspoken threat of violence lingers behind the kiss. He tries not to flinch away from her, but he fails. She grins against his skin and he can feel the subtle edge of her white fangs behind it.

“Good boy.”

_ Good boy. _

She pats condescendingly at his cheek. Her hand leaves his face and he finally feels like he regains a semblance of control over his lungs. Hector quietly exhales the dead air that had been choking him. Carmilla grasps at a stray lock of his hair. Twirls it between two of her fingers. The curl springs taut in the aftermath of her ministrations, aided by the lift of a recent wash.

“My, your hair is getting so _ long_,” she coos. His eyes open at that. Hector can feel the heat rising to his face despite the perpetual chill of the castle. “You have such pretty hair, Hector. Such a unique color, and the most _ delicious _ curls. I think I rather like it this way.”

He does not reply. He stands, frozen, as she pets her claws through his tangled hair.

“It’s a _ compliment_, Hector.” She sounds exasperated. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“N-no,” he stutters. She grabs a fistful of it in her fingers, wrenches his head up so that he meets her pale eyes. They are arctic. “Thank you, Carmilla.”

She laughs, a compassionless, cruel sound that lingers in his ears. Like sugar laced with formaldehyde. She tugs his head to the side, throws him forcefully by his hair as she lets go. He sucks air in through his teeth as he stumbles, tears springing forth at the sudden pain of it. Hector lands gracelessly on the hard stone floor. He watches through hazy eyes as she turns away from him to open the door.

“You have another week,” she says over her shoulder. “I want the next one bigger, even if we have to rip through another orphanage to get you the corpses.”

The slamming of the forge door blankets the horrified cry that escapes his mouth.

Hector shivers there on the floor as he listens to the key turn in the tumbler of the lock. He shakes in the wake of Carmilla’s words. Clutches at the tattered front of his filthy, ill-fitting shirt until his hands hurt and his fingers are stiff. Another week, he resigns himself. Another week of turning the bodies of mutilated children into monsters for Carmilla. Another week of being raped and starved and brutalized. And after that? Another just like it. And then another, another and another until he either drops dead or ends up murdered. At this point, it no longer matters to him.

The chain drags after him on the ground as he stands. Without his hammer, there is little to do but quietly sit and go mad or sleep. He does quite a lot of the latter as of late. Hector crawls into his rickety cot and curls miserably onto his side, trying to ignore the hunger eating away at his insides. The ghost of Carmilla’s touch skitters over his nerves like loose cobwebs. It makes him shudder where he lies, and he clenches his eyes shut against the sensation, wills himself to sleep before the memory of it consumes him.

He’s not sure how long he sleeps. He dreams a little, fragments of half-formed scenarios: the wheat fields he’d played in as a lonely child, the ocean under a wide, blue sky, an idle conversation he’d shared with Isaac that had hardly meant anything at the time. They flicker behind his closed eyes in a strange sequence that shouldn’t make any sense, but in sleep it all flows naturally from one scene to the next. It is oddly peaceful. A welcome reprieve from the malice that awaits him in the waking world.

He awakens at the click of the lock.

Instantly the dreams are dashed away, melting from the foggy corners of his mind as Hector pulls himself into consciousness. The lack of footsteps sets him on edge, and his ears strain through the unnerving silence. The door slowly drifts open, the normally creaky hinges uncharacteristically quiet.

It closes quickly, with no one ever crossing the threshold.

It was all eerily similar. _ It had been a dream, _he had tried to tell himself. A conjuration of his traumatized, concussed head to put himself at ease. But this does not feel like a dream. While groggy with sleep, his mind unnaturally lethargic with hunger, Hector is in full possession of all his faculties. His heart races in the darkness as he sits completely, utterly still. He waits.

There is the same whisper of fabric. The same burst of blue-green light, and Hector has to shield his eyes from the gently bobbing wisp of ghostly fire that flickers to life next to his bed. It rests in a small, unassuming hand. The very air seems to ripple like a curtain in a breeze, and a young woman suddenly materializes in the empty space.

Her eyes, wide and peculiar as they look at him, are the same. They face they belong to is not.

“You are Hector?”

He blinks in the wake of her question. For a moment he forgets to answer, bewildered as he is by the odds of a _ second _ phantom appearing, quite literally, out of thin air in his forge. She tilts her head impatiently and he grapples for the words to reply. “I am.”

“Get up.”

The demand rings snappishly through the chill air. Hector sluggishly moves to comply. He pulls the blankets back to swing his legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t understand,” he murmurs. “The girl from before…” _ Aria_, his mind supplies him.

“Quickly!” The woman hisses the word at him, waving her hand at him.

“Where is Aria?” he asks.

“She is waiting for us. Get _ up_.” She must grow tired of waiting because her hand reaches for him, nearly too fast for his eyes to follow. She pulls him up by the wrist and the only choice he has is to lurch to his feet or be yanked to the floor. Hector wobbles a bit on his feet.

“Then who are you?”

“_Shite_, but do you always ask so many questions?” Hector shrinks back from her, stung by the annoyance in her voice. “Iri. Call me Iri. Now let’s—”

She silences herself mid-thought. Her head whips to the side, eyes trained on the closed door. Hector follows her gaze, trying to discern what it is that has her so fixated, and when he hears the weighted gait of armored footsteps he freezes. His mouth goes dry. A sick, sinking chill settles at the back of his neck and he shivers as it rolls down the length of his spine.

“Hide,” he whispers to the girl. His hands begin to shake. “You need to hide.”

“I can kill him.”

The statement wavers in the space between them. Something dark, something terrifying and monstrous bubbles low in Hector’s chest, just below his heart. _ Yes, _ it whispers to him. He wants nothing more than to watch Miron die. He wants to watch him suffer, wants to watch the hellish gleam of undead life drain from his ugly red eyes. Hector wants to wash his hands in his blood. The very thought of it coils through him powerful enough to make him shudder.

“No,” he tells her. He curls his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms. “Just… wait until he leaves. But _ hide_.”

Instantly, she disappears from view. The light sputters out and leaves him standing alone in the dark. Hector throws himself back into his bed, tugs the ratty blanket back over himself. Tries to calm his racing heart lest Miron hear it from the other side of the door. He covers his mouth with a clammy palm, attempting to gain some control over his breathing. He should have anticipated this. That night had been the first he’d seen of Miron since he’d tried to crush his skull with the forgemaster’s hammer, and he’d practically _ challenged _ him to this. In front of Carmilla, no less. He’d practically ensured this for himself and, as satisfying and _ vindicating _ as it had felt in that moment, every inch of his skin now crawls with regret.

The footsteps come to a halt outside of his door. A key slides into the lock, and the sound has never before been so loud in his ears. Metal hinges creak ominously and light from the hallway illuminates the room for just a moment before the door closes again. As Miron approaches the cot, Hector knows he can tell he is not asleep. He sits still anyways, trying to prolong the calm before the storm as long as he possibly can.

It does not last long.

Miron’s weight settles next to him on the mattress. There is the muffled sound of stretched leather, gloves being pulled off one finger at a time. Hector waits, eyes wide in the darkness. The hand that fists against his scalp is hardly unexpected but it nevertheless tears a shocked sound from him. Miron pulls his head up by the roots of his hair, brings him in close so he can feel lips against the shell of his ear.

“I sincerely hope,” he drawls, “that your little display earlier was well worth the strife you have bought yourself, forgemaster.”

Hector does not respond. He trembles as cold fingers trail up the quivering flesh of his belly, nails rasping against the soft, vulnerable skin. His shirt is dragged up so the cold air bites at him. Hector thrashes. He pitches his body forward, trying to dislodge the hand touching him. Miron relocates the grip in his hair to grasp tightly underneath his jaw, squeezing ominously against his windpipe.

“Be still,” he spits, and the pressure on his throat coerces him to comply. “You are _ extraordinarily _ lucky your mistress is so fucking fond of you. Personally, I would not suffer a mongrel as disobedient as you to live. Not after the trouble you’ve put me through.”

The knowledge that he’s managed to get so deep under Miron’s skin makes his blood sing. The gratification is short lived, though, as he is forced to his knees. Miron holds him down by the scruff of his neck, or what he can take hold of around the metal collar. He climbs over Hector to sit back on his heels and begins to tug away his breeches.

“Though I suppose there must be some benefits to being Carmilla’s pet whore.”

“If I am a whore,” Hector hisses between his teeth, “then you alone owe me a _ fortune_.”

A clawed hand closes around his genitals and _ squeezes. _ Hector cries out. He wills himself to hold deathly still. His breath leaves his chest in short, irregular bursts. The pain shrieks through his blood as cacophonous as the panic tearing through his soul at the very real fear he is going to be maimed.

“Listen to me, you little shit.” Miron’s grip tightens a fraction and Hector whimpers. “The barest payment you are owed would be my teeth in your throat as you bled to death around my _ cock_. The only thing that stands between you and that is your mistress. Do you understand?”

Reluctantly, Hector nods.

“Good. Remember that. You might want to think about kissing her feet the next time she deigns to see you.” The hand around him falls away and Hector audibly sighs with the relief of it. The breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding leaves him in a desperate rush. “Now.” Miron pulls him back by his hips. He winces as the threadbare bedding burns his knees. He can feel the cold weight of him at the back of his thigh. “Are you going to behave?”

Hector shuts his eyes against the sting that threatens to overwhelm them. _ “Yes.” _

“Good boy.” The words are said to mock him, he knows, and they cut him to the core.

Miron fucks him, quite literally he thinks, within an inch of his life. A handful of times he comes very, very close to blacking out from the sheer brutality of it. It always hurt, and while Hector has long since come to terms with the reality he will never get _ used _ to the pain, every other dawn he’d spent screaming into his pillow pales in comparison. Miron pulls his head back by the already tender roots of his hair so he can hear every tortured sound. Hector shouts himself hoarse. He couldn’t stifle himself if he tried. At this point it feels like a survival tactic; as though if he were to keep silent the agony would scorch him from the inside and leave him a burned out, empty husk. Towards the end Miron wrenches his neck to the side. The angle is awkward, and Hector has to bend his upper body with it. He is forced to watch Miron’s face in the scarce light as he finishes, spending himself in a cold, tense snap of his hips. Hector grits his teeth against it, bites down on his tongue until he tastes blood.

It is the last time, he reminds himself. This will be the last fucking time Miron will _ ever _ touch him.

As Miron slips free of his body, he can already feel that there is more blood than usual. His thighs are slick with it. Miron uses his blanket to clean himself and Hector watches, sickened, as he licks the excess off his fingers.

“Let this be a lesson to you, puppy,” he says as he tucks himself back into his trousers. The bed creaks as he stands. He makes a show of tugging his gloves back on. Smoothes his dark, sweaty hair back with a palm. “Perhaps you’ll think twice now before you consider biting the hand that feeds you.”

Hector’s lips are readied to spit in his face before he stops himself.

He watches with bated breath as Miron walks himself across the room. He unlocks the door and disappears at the other side of it before re-locking it behind himself.

Hector drags a hand over his face. Breathes in. Breathes out.

He can’t even bring himself to turn his head at the sound in the corner of the room.

The woman, Iri, reilluminates the forge with her strange teal light. The realization that she had seen everything, _ heard _ everything, whirls heavy in his stomach. He doesn’t have the fortitude to feel rightfully ashamed, not at the moment, but the knowledge sits sour at the base of his esophagus like curdled milk and he very suddenly feels the urge to throw up. There is no time to dwell on it, he reminds himself. They are leaving. _ He _ is leaving.

“I could have killed him,” she tells him.

“And if you didn’t?” he asks. It _ hurts _ to speak. The air grates against his raw vocal chords. “If you didn’t, and he raised the alarm? Neither of us would make it out of here alive.”

“He would have died.” She kneels next to his bed, her eyes now level with his own. “That I promise you.”

“It hardly matters now.” Hector shakes his head. “At the very least, it bought us time. It will be several hours before anyone else comes.”

She offers him her hand, and he only takes it because he doesn’t trust his own strength to lift himself from the bed. The world spins as he stands and Hector makes to clean the mess from his legs with his now soiled blanket. He does a poor job, but he can at least dress himself again without reeking of fresh blood.

Iri reaches a hand toward his face and Hector instinctively jerks away, staring at her with wide, frightened eyes.

“Easy.” She says the word softly, as though attempting to soothe a startled animal. “I need to take a look at that.” She points to the collar around his throat.

“I…” He nods to her. Truthfully, he hadn’t even thought about it. It had entirely slipped his mind. Of course it would need to be dealt with if they planned on even making it out of this room. Iri’s fingers slowly linger over the metalwork. It almost feels as though she is looking for something. “It might be easier to simply break the chain,” he offers. She shakes her head.

“There are glyphs in the metal,” she says. “Here.” Her nail digs into an indentation. It presses against his skin. “Tracking runes. If you were to leave here with it, all they would have to do is follow the spell. They would find you within hours.”

He swallows weakly. “What do we do?” he asks her, voice thin and reedy.

“I will have to take it off.”

“You can do that?”

Iri makes a lazy, affirmative noise. Her hand delves into a pocket on her jacket and she pulls out something small. It is a leaf he realizes as she holds it closer to the light. She briefly presses it to her lips, then to the metal at the base of his neck. “Hold still.”

“What—”

There is a blinding flash of white light. Hector covers his eyes against it, jumps at the quiet _ snap _ he feels against his skin in its wake.

The collar pops open. It falls unceremoniously to the stone floor. He gapes at it where it lies. There at his feet it is simply an unassuming ring of metal and for a moment he does not even recognize it as the shackle that has chained him to Carmilla. To this castle. His hands fly to his throat and he trembles as he feels the skin there, grimy and tender and _ free_.

“Did they put any marks on you?” Iri’s voice sounds fast and far away as it tears him from his thoughts. “Any tattoos? Strange symbols?”

“N-no.” Hector is struggling to string words together. He wants to scream, to cry, to fall to his knees. “Thank you,” is all he can manage.

“No.” She fixes him with hard eyes. “You do not thank me. If anything, you can thank my sister’s bleeding _ fucking _ heart.” The harshness of her tone does little to drown out the exhilaration singing through his veins, but he nods all the same. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.” His legs feel shaky under his weight, but he does not tell her that. He will _ crawl _ out of this place if he has to.

“Do you have a coat? Shoes?” He shakes his head. She gives him a look he can’t quite place. Concern, or maybe pity. “All right; I suppose we will have to figure that out later. Is there _ anything _ you want to bring with you?”

“My hammer,” he tells her. “It’s somewhere in the castle, I-I don’t know where they keep it. If we can find—”

“There is not time for that.”

_ “Please.” _ He says it desperately. The thought of leaving his forgemaster’s hammer in Carmilla’s hands is more than he can bear. It threatens to break his heart into pieces. He begs her with his eyes. “Please.”

“I am sorry; it is too risky. We need to leave now.” Hector chokes in a breath. His throat burns with tears he won’t show her. “Here is what is going to happen: I will cast a glamour over the both of us. No one will be able to see you, but they can still hear you. Keep as quiet as possible. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She holds outstretched fingers toward him. “Take my hand and do not let go.”

He fits his palm into hers. Iri laces their fingers together.

It feels as though every inch of skin is all at once cloaked in a sheer, thin shroud. It tingles against his nerves. The sensation is oddly disorienting. Iri tugs him towards the door. She presses her ear against it, the delicately pointed tip held flush against the heavy wood.

“I don’t hear anyone,” she tells him. She waves her hand in front of the lock and he watches, fascinated, as the mechanism opens. “Remember: not a sound.”

It occurs to Hector, as Iri silently opens the door, that he has no idea how long it has been since he left this room. There is a brief moment, just before he crosses the threshold into the hall, that he panics. Carmilla will find him, a dark voice nags at him. She will drag him back here kicking and screaming. She will chain him with stronger shackles and make sure he _ never _ dares to try and leave again, and his life will be more miserable for it. He hesitates there, but before he can second guess himself, Iri pulls him through and Hector takes his first steps outside of the forge in… god, he can’t even guess.

The hall is dimly lit, scarcely decorated with a threadbare runner over the stone floor and torch-bearing sconces on the walls. It is empty, as far as he can tell. Iri pulls him behind her; she moves quickly, tugging him along behind her like a lost child. The comparison is, in truth, not that far off.

Aria had said they’d been watching the castle for almost a week before she’d found him. Iri certainly seems to know her way as she leads him through it. They navigate the winding halls and scurry down stone stairwells faster than he can track. He does his best to keep up; the ache deep at the base of his spine dogs at him, and he can tell Iri is slowing herself for his benefit, but the effort to keep moving is testing his limits. Hector grimaces against the pain as, again, his legs fail to cooperate for a dizzying moment. He nearly stumbles, only managing to stay upright as Iri’s arm catches him around the waist. She says nothing, doesn’t even give him a look as she simply moves them along, holding him steadily against her small frame. He doesn’t know whether to be grateful or to be mortified.

It must be close to sunrise. Were it nearer to the dead of night this place would undoubtedly be _ crawling _ with vampires. As it is, they only pass one or two on their way. Hector holds his breath as they slip by and, to his utter amazement, none of them seem to suspect a thing. He can hardly believe it. Until now he hadn’t been able to _ piss _ without Carmilla hearing about it and here he is, roaming her halls, collarless and as close to free as he’s been since he’d met her. It almost makes him want to laugh.

Iri takes him through what looks to be an ill-used servants’ kitchen. Idly he wonders if this is where she herself had infiltrated the place. They stop in front of a door and Hector takes a moment to catch his breath. It leaves him in a rush as she works at the lock, swinging the door open to the outside world. He stares out at the dark lilac haze of early, early morning.

“Let’s go,” she mouths silently to him. Her arm tightens around him. He simply watches her face as she carefully helps him down a set of crumbling stairs.

The trek from the castle courtyard towards the tree line in the distance is a blur. Hector can hardly think past the brisk chill of the outdoor air, the wet rush of dewy grass under his feet. There are birds beginning to sing, announcing their survival through the night to one another. He focuses on walking and placing one foot in front of the other, holding on to Iri’s hand as though were he to let go this whole dream would go up in smoke. His breath is loud in his ears, the exertion heavy in his lungs.

The trees grow closer. They reach the border of the forest and Hector stills. Iri senses him stopping. She turns, gives him a confused, irritated look.

“Wait,” he whispers, less afraid to speak now that they are far out of earshot of the castle. “Just a moment.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but it closes as he turns to look at the sky. The sun is beginning to rise. Hector watches it, awe-struck, as the soft pink and gold light starts to illuminate the landscape. It splashes over his face, gentle and warming in ways that he had entirely forgotten. It takes his breath away.

Tears spill unbidden down his cheeks, sweet and cathartic and healing, and he thinks, knows that he’s never seen anything more beautiful in all his life.

“Come on.”

Iri squeezes his hand in hers. It breaks him from his reverie and he looks at her with wet eyes.

“Let’s go, Hector.”

He goes with her. As they make their way into the forest, he does not even spare a last glance to the castle behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment with your feedback to let me know what you think.


	4. Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments and feedback on the last few chapters! I really appreciate it!
> 
> There were some questions about how Alucard is going to tie into this story, and while I promise you he will it is still going to be a couple of chapters before I get to him. This is a Hector-centric piece, and I really wanted there to be more to this story than just Alucard showing up and fixing everything. Plus you guys need to meet my OC's :)
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

They walk for hours.

Iri silently leads him through the trees on a route he cannot discern for himself. There is no path along the forest floor; there are no trail markers to be seen. Once they are far enough away from the castle she lets go of his hand and the sensation of the glamour being lifted makes him shiver. It is like peeling away wet clothing that has stuck to his skin so long it is almost second nature. In a way, it is oddly freeing.

The gentle hush of early morning blankets the woods around them. Hector is full of questions. There is so much he wants to ask, but he is reluctant to break the quiet that envelopes the two of them as they continue on. It almost feels wrong to. As though were he to open his mouth the last few hours would slip away, like so much loose sand between his fingers. The illusion might shatter, and he might awaken alone, cold, and in trapped in the dark of the hell he desperately hopes he has left behind for good. And so he simply listens. The birds sing to them as they pass. The wind rustles through the tree limbs overhead. Animals scurry through the foliage around them. Once or twice he hears them: a fox crying out to her mate in the distance; a rabbit thumping against the chilly ground to warn of their approach; the sobering howl of a lone wolf that goes unanswered. Every bit of it enchants him. It is astounding to once again be surrounded by so much life, to be reassured that even as time had stood still for him in the castle the world continued to turn all the while.

The fresh air that fills his lungs fortifies him in a way he had not expected. Hector savors each breath. Every inhalation is a frigid gift and even as the cold settles stiff in his bones he is grateful for the rush.

He suspects Iri is slowing herself considerably for his sake. Invigorating as it is to reacquaint himself with the outside world it does little to dull the ache of his hurts. Hector fights through the tremble in his legs. The souvenirs of Miron’s savagery still weigh heavy on his body. Every once in a while Iri turns back to take note of how far behind her he lags. Even as he does his best to keep up, he knows he is slowing them down. She makes no remark of it. Simply stalls her pace to something he is able to maintain. He does not complain, and she does not ask after how he fares. They continue on in their companionable silence.

Eventually, after hours of walking, Iri holds her hand out to him in a signal to stop. He stills himself at her side and waits. She tilts her head to the breeze, eyes staring into the distance as she listens. Hector strains his ears for a chance he could hear something himself, but there is nothing. Simply the harmony of the forest, oblivious to the two of them. He startles when she opens her mouth to sing. A subdued, haunting chain of notes in a language he has never heard before. The sound rings through the brisk air of the wood. For several moments there is nothing to follow it. They wait in eerie silence, and the sound of Hector’s breathing is suddenly loud in his lungs. Then a voice answers, its song as mysteriously dulcet as Iri’s. He can see her visibly relax at the sound. She moves, gesturing for him to follow.

Nestled in between a copse of trees looks to be a small camp. There is a humble pit for a fire with a fallen log pulled close, as though for a makeshift seat. A crude lean-to shelter has been erected against one of the larger trees. Hector looks about the site for the source of the other voice. There is a familiar flicker in the space next to the fire, and a figure quickly materializes before them. It is Aria, the cloaked girl that had visited him a week before. She lets out a relieved sigh at the sight of them. Her hands reach for Iri, who takes them easily. She clasps them tight.

“You are back,” the smaller of the two says breathily. “I was worried.”

“What for?” Iri undoes the clasp of her own cloak. She drapes it over the sideways log.

“You were gone a long while, _ deirfiúr mór.” _

“Aye. There was… a small complication.”

Iri nods her head in Hector’s direction. Suddenly, both pin him with their strange, wide eyes. In the daylight he is afforded a better look at them. They are the same color, a remarkable shade of verdant green, and unnervingly vast. Is is almost as though they are just a hair too large for their heart-shaped faces. Aria is smaller than Iri by a few inches. Where her hair is pale blonde and cropped close to her head, Iri’s is long and red, woven into a thick plait at the back of her neck. Freckles lie scattered over her skin. There is again the peculiar feeling that something about them is simply… _ odd. _Hector cannot quite put his finger on it.

Aria smiles at him. He is too anxious to return it. “It is good to see you again, Hector,” she murmurs softly.

He shifts warily where he stands. He crosses one arm over his middle to grasp anxiously at his wrist. “H-hello.”

“Would you like to sit?” She tilts her head in the direction of the overturned log. “I know the walk must have been long. Are you tired? Are you cold? Hungry?”

His mind is racing. He gapes stupidly at her, unsure how to answer any of her questions. He is exhausted. He is exhausted, chilled to the bone, and starving, and yet he is terrified to give voice to any of it.

“One at a time, Aria,” Iri says to her. “Give the poor bastard a chance.”

“... Sorry.” She winces apologetically at him.

Hector sits quietly beside her. He keeps a careful distance between the two of them and is grateful that she seems to respect it. Iri settles opposite them at the base of a sturdy tree. She seems wholly uninterested in him now as she nonchalantly plucks an arrow from the quiver that had been hidden under her cloak. There is a bow slung over her shoulder that Hector had not noticed before. He watches as she inspects the feather fletchings on the tail end. The arrowhead glints dangerously in the light.

“Would you like something to eat?”

Aria looks at him expectantly. He shrinks under her gaze.

“I…” Hector pauses. Swallows nervously.

“We have a few apples left, I think. And there is water if you would like a drink.”

The mere mention of water reminds him of the desert that is his mouth. He has not had a proper drink in what feels like days. “I would, please.”

“Of course!”

Aria jumps from her seat. He thinks he can see Iri roll her eyes. A small waterskin is held out toward him and he takes it with a small expression of thanks. The first sip of cool, clean water takes his breath away. It is fresh and delicious in a way he’d entirely forgotten water could be. Hector drinks, and drinks, and amazingly the waterskin never seems to empty. It must be some kind of magic. As he wipes at his lips, he wonders whether or not he should have accepted.

“What is the date?” he asks.

“I do not know the _exact_ date,” Iri answers boredly, “but it is early spring now. Planting season should start in about two weeks.”

Hector gapes at her. _ Early spring_. Carmilla had taken him in late autumn. An entire season had come and gone while he’d toiled away behind the castle walls. Whole months lost to him. It is almost dizzying to wrap his mind around.

His jaw throbs. The pain had slowly been creeping up the back of his skull during their trek and now it was beginning to take root in a genuine headache. He can feel the muscles stiffening around the hinge below his right ear and he winces, cupping his hand around the ache. He doubts he could eat anything like this, much less bite through an apple.

“Is that still bothering you?”

Aria is staring intently at him. Hector nods slowly in reply. “The joint locks up. Sometimes I cannot move it.”

“May I?”

She holds a hand out towards his face. His first instinct is to flinch away, to put some distance between them, but Aria sits patiently still in the face of his brief panic. She simply waits, a small, reassuring smile on her lips, for him to consent to being touched. Wordlessly, Hector shifts himself closer to her so she can press easy, curious fingers to his jaw. Her touch is cool against the tender skin and it soothes the dull throb a little. Hector holds his breath as she carefully examines the injury, healing poorly in the past week since Miron had dealt him the blow with his own hammer.

“I’ll bet that hurts, doesn’t it?” Her lips draw closed in a concerned, sympathetic expression. “Poor soul. I know healing magic. Would you like me to help?”

“Can you?”

“I can try.”

He watches, puzzled, as she reaches into a pocket somewhere at her hip. Her hand emerges and in the center of it sits a small acorn. Aria cups it between her palms and blows a gentle breath between them, whispering something so quietly he cannot make out the words for himself. When she holds it out towards him, he inspects it. It still seems to be nothing more than the same unassuming acorn.

“Place this under your tongue.” Hector’s brows furrow as he gives her a skeptical look. She gazes serenely back. “I’m afraid you will have to trust me. It will help, I promise.” Reluctantly, he takes the seed from her hand. He hesitates with it against his lips, feeling silly about to put an acorn in his mouth at the behest of this strange girl he didn’t know. She smiles encouragingly at him and he acquiesces, tucking the thing under his tongue. It tastes slightly bitter but otherwise benign. Aria takes his face in her hands again. “Keep very still, please.”

Hector holds his breath. For a few moments nothing happens. He is about to open his mouth to ask if there was something else he should be doing when the acorn begins to _ move_. It fizzes against his gums and teeth and to his amazement he can feel it growing warmer in his mouth. His first instinct is to spit it out, but Aria murmurs his name and it is enough to distract him, to pull his eyes to her own. Suddenly there is a gentle _ pop _ underneath his tongue and his jaw _ cracks_. It is enough to wrench a bitten off yelp between his clenched teeth, his head snapping back with the recoil. Hector clings to Aria’s wrists as he tries to regain his bearings while the world spins around him.

“I’m sorry!” Aria tenderly presses her fingers into the screaming hinges of his jaw. “If I had warned you it would hurt then you would have tensed up. Oh, I am so sorry.”

Her voice is nearly lost to him as he bends to rest his head between his knees. He was such an idiot, blindly trusting anyone who showed him any shred of feigned compassion. He should have known it was a trick. The acorn falls from between his lips and falls somewhere at his feet. Hector sucks in a deep breath and attempts to quell the pounding in his skull.

He realizes, somewhere between the trembling in his hands and the heartbeat thundering in his ears, that his teeth no longer sit askew in his mouth.

Hector sits up. He swallows. Rotates his jaw. The tension that had been ingrained in his temples, under his chin and behind his ears, was _ gone_. As was his headache, amazingly enough. He gapes at Aria.

“Better?” she asks timidly. He nods, stunned.

“... Yes.” She sighs at that, relieved.

“Good. Wonderful.” She stands abruptly to retrieve something out of view. Hector blinks as several articles of clothing are thrust into his hands: a tunic, jacket, pair of trousers, woolen stockings, boots, and cloak, all slightly rumpled and clean smelling. “I had no way of knowing if they would fit, but they will be better than what you have now at any rate.”

_ “Aria.” _

Iri’s waspish tone reaches them from the other side of the camp. She glares pointedly at Aira.

“The poor man has no _ shoes_, Iri.” She puts her hands defiantly on her hips. “You can hardly expect him to trek through the wilderness in bare feet and no coat.”

“... Thank you.”

Hector’s timid, quiet words cut through the tension between them. He holds the clothes tightly in his fingers, hardly believing them to be real. That any of this could be real. Aria sighs gently at him. She tilts her head kindly, ignoring Iri’s prickly look.

“You are very welcome, Hector.”

“I… would like to wash,” he says quietly, “before I put any of this on.”

“Of course.” Aria turns to rifle through a hefty satchel. “I know we have soap somewhere in here… Ah!” She finds what she is looking for and holds it out for him. Hector takes the proffered chunk of simple lye soap hung on a length of twine. “There is a stream just down the hill, over there.” She points off in the distance.

“Take these.”

Iri’s voice catches him off guard, so much so that he almost misses the two apples she tosses his way. His mouth instantly begins to water at the sight of the fruit’s dark, dappled skin. Hector nods in thanks as he stands to make his way in the direction Aria had pointed.

The stream is close, and the water is frigid. Hector sits at the bank for a scant few minutes to thoroughly devour his two apples. They are exquisite; sweet and crisp and satisfying enough to bring tears to his eyes. After forcing himself to swallow down nothing but foul, mealy porridge for god knows how long it is nothing short of heavenly to sink his teeth into the fruit’s flesh. He would be ashamed of the way he strips the cores of their flesh until he can see the seeds, of the way he greedily sucks the juice from his fingers, but he simply can’t bring himself to care.

The water is far too cold for more than a quick rinse and once-over with his soap. Hector shivers as he kneels naked to wet his skin. He is grateful for the opportunity to wash, icy as his impromptu bath is. The leftover grime from the forge dissipates in the stream’s current, as does the foul blend of his own blood and Miron’s seed long since dried at the back of his thighs. The gashes against his hip bones, raked through yet again by brutal claws, reopen to leave pink ripples in the water. Hector winces as he does his best to clean his injuries. They are aching and raw after, but it is good to know they are at least as clean as he can make them.

The clothes do not fit perfectly, the boots a little too big for his feet and the trousers too long in the leg, but they are warm and clean. Hector knows instantly that they had once belonged to somebody else. He tries not to dwell on where Aria had found them or who they had once belonged to.

The thought of his strange new rescuers prompts him to ponder. They are clearly not human. He doubted they were vampires; there were no fangs, no claws, and the sun did not seem to hinder them. The pointed ears, the too-wide eyes, the… magic-imbued acorns, all point to something else, though he is unsure what. And what sort of person cannot recall the date but knows exactly how close it is to planting season? He wonders if he has simply jumped out of the fire and into the proverbial frying pan in following two bizarre girls out of Carmilla’s castle and into the wilderness. Dracula had once told him he was too trusting of others, too willing to take them at their word. He had clearly been proven right in the end. As it stood, he had little choice but to remain with them. He had nowhere else to go, and they have treated him well. He was fed, given new clothes, and healed, all without being beaten or abused. And at least he was no longer trapped under Carmilla’s thumb or beneath Miron’s cruelty.

His hair, as Carmilla had pointed out before, had grown much longer. Hector hates feeling it tangle around his shoulders. He quite possibly hates it even more since Carmilla had decided to open her mouth about it, so he tears a strip from the raggedy shirt he’d worn before and ties it up at the back of his head. He resigns himself to cut it the second he can get his hands on a mirror.

Voices murmur from the direction of the camp as he makes his way back. Hector hangs back to listen, curious to hear what they are talking about in his absence. He conceals himself behind a tree and strains his ears.

“—to stay _ put _ here at camp.”

“It was only about an hour’s walk, Iri, and no one saw me. I left them plenty of money to cover the loss.”

“Farmers might value their clothes more than empty coins left by a thief. What if you had been caught?”

“But I wasn’t!”

Hector startles reflexively at the rise in volume. He wills his heart to calm as he continues to listen.

“... Do you think he will come back?”

Iri scoffs. “He will if he knows what is good for him. His only other options are wandering around these woods until he starves or freezes to death, or to walk himself back to Carmilla.”

“That is _ cruel_, Iri.” A beat of heavy, loaded quiet. “Father would be sick to hear you say such things.”

“Well, he is dead, is he not? And _ mother _ would be sick to hear of you stealing from mortals like some common imp.”

“I am sorry it was not Puck in that castle!” Aria says sincerely. “I am, truly. I wish it had been. But that is hardly Hector’s fault, and you will not take it out on him. I just… I could not _ leave _ him there, Iri.”

“... Well you didn’t, did you? And I am not taking anything out on him.”

“Then the least you can do is show him a little compassion.”

The two of them fall silent as Hector crosses the border of the camp. Iri looks away from him, her arms crossed over her chest. Aria offers him a weak smile. He says nothing to indicate what he’d overheard, opting instead to sit again in front of the empty fire pit.

“If I may,” he says, looking between them, “might I ask a question?”

“I have a proposition.” Iri turns to him and fixes him with suspicious eyes. “We will answer your question if you answer one of ours: how does someone like you end up collared and chained in Carmilla’s castle?”

He freezes. Hector’s mouth goes dry. He eyes the bow slung over Iri’s back. “I—”

“Do _ not _ lie. I will know if you do, and I will be far from pleased.”

“I am a forgemaster. She was forcing me to build her a horde.”

“So you are a necromancer.” He nods timidly. “And where did she find you?”

“... I was a general of Vlad Dracula.”

The air immediately shifts. Aria looks worriedly at her sister, who pins Hector with a stricken, heavy glare.

“You were a general under Dracula?” she breathes. “You forged devils for him? Hordes of them, to wipe out all human life? Your own people?” Hector bristles at that, but he remains silent in the face of her disdain. “Have you _ any _ idea the damage his little rampage has wrought? How much carnage and death we have had to wade through to get here? Thousands of people have died. _ Thousands_. Men and women and… and _ children _—”

“Iri,” Aria says softly, drawing closer in an attempt to soothe her.

“This was a mistake, Aria!” She points accusingly at Hector. “He is a monster! Every bit of one as the demons he made for fucking _ Dracula_!”

“For what it is worth,” Hector speaks up, quickly growing tired of being spoken of as if he were not there in front of her, “I was lied to. Dracula was… not honest with me about the nature of his war.”

“Of course he lied to you!” Iri shakes her head in disbelief. “He was _ Dracula_. You were a fucking fool to take a vampire at his word, much less Dracula of all—”

“Stop it!” Aria cries. Her hands are balled into small fists at her sides. “We did not rescue him from Carmilla to crucify him in the woods. Whatever his sins, whatever crimes he has committed, we both can attest that he has _ paid _ for them.”

“... He is dead then?”

Iri raises her eyebrows at his question. “Dracula?” she huffs. “Oh, he is dead. Killed by his own boy, no less. Not even half of what he deserved.”

Hector’s eyes fall to the ground. There had been a small part of him, all the while, that had hoped Carmilla had not been telling him the truth. If Dracula was dead, then…

“What did you want to ask, Hector?”

Aria’s voice breaks him from his thoughts. He tries to gather the words he’d wanted to say on his tongue but something blunt and far less eloquent than he liked tumbles out.

“What are you?”

They both look at each other. The question hangs weighty between the three of them, and for a moment Hector thinks neither of them will deign to answer him. Aria finally addresses him with a heavy sigh.

“We are Fae,” she tells him.

He regards her with questioning eyes. She stares impassively back. “I’ve heard it said there are no Fae in Wallachia.”

“Aye,” Iri says mockingly, “and we are not _ from _ Wallachia, are we, Aria?”

“There are not any Fae in Wallachia, no. They dispersed when the creatures of the night laid claim to this land. Iri and I came here from the western side of the continent, oddly enough, to find Dracula’s castle.”

“I thought all faeries had wings.”

Aria’s face drops. Hector’s heart twists in his chest. It begins to sink in that he has said the wrong thing, and while it is a familiar feeling he’s known all his life, it stings especially harshly at the sad expression she gives him.

“They do,” she says in a small, quiet voice. Iri turns away from them. He can hear the irritated, heated breath leave her.

“He can come with us to the castle,” she snaps at her sister. “But he is _ your _ responsibility. And if the boy decides to kill him, that too will be your responsibility.”

“Fine.” Aria clears her throat.

“We need to move on. We have lingered here long enough as it is, and I for one am eager to put more distance between us and that bloody castle.”

Aria pulls her satchel over her shoulder. She wordlessly reaches her hand out to help Hector up and he accepts, stunned at the kindness she shows him despite her sister’s disdain. No more is said as they break down the camp. Iri scatters what evidence of their presence lingers on the land with a few whispered words and a wave of her hand.

When they begin the next leg of their journey, Hector follows close behind Aria and tries to ignore the conflicted feeling knotting its way through his insides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please please please leave a comment to let me know what you think! I love feedback and it really encourages me while I'm writing the later chapters!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _deirfiúr mór:_ older sister


	5. Part V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kind comments on the last chapter! I'm really glad some of you are actually interested in getting to know Iri and Aria.
> 
> I apologize for how short this chapter is, but I had to make it a standalone part for pacing's sake. It didn't really fit in with the flow of the next one. And please believe me when I say research for this really made me wish I'd taken a geography class in college. I felt like a damn fool looking at all these damn maps trying to figure out where the hell Styria is (was). I'm trying to make their journey feel as realistic as possible (faeries and vampires not withstanding) but please forgive me if some of it sounds a little fucked!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

The three of them travel the rest of the day and all through the following night. “Carmilla will send her people for you,” Iri assures him when they finally stop to rest well after sunrise. “We can be certain of that. And while we can cover our tracks, keep off the roads, and take advantage of the daylight hours, the fact remains that they have horses and we do not. If they catch wind of us they will be on us faster than we can run.”

The thought instills a numbing, all-consuming fear in Hector. The blood drains from his face, and he must visibly pale because Aria reaches for his hand. He blinks at the sight of her fingers comfortingly clasped around his own.

“That will not happen,” she says. “We have almost an entire day’s head start, and we can cast a glamour over the camp. Even if they catch up, even if they ride straight through us they will not find anything.”

“Be that as it may, we cannot take any chances. No fires after sundown, no impromptu stops, and under _ no _ circumstances are you to wander off on your own.” Iri punctuates the last statement with a pointed stare in her sister’s direction.

Hector knows that, unable to travel in the sunlight, it had taken Carmilla and her escort two and a half weeks to travel to Styria. He remembers little of the journey beyond the first two or three nights, and in truth he is grateful for that. Iri estimates that with good weather they could potentially be back in Wallachia in as few as ten days.

“She will have eyes in every village from here to Budapest. As much as I loathe the idea of traveling so far on foot, we have little choice. Budapest is big enough we shouldn’t have much of an issue in going unnoticed, and I’m sure there will be plenty of wagons and horses to purchase.” Iri says all of this with her nose buried in their only map. They were setting up camp to rest in the asylum afforded them by the sun. Hector helps to build a small fire for them, happy to contribute where he can. Aria rinses the mushroom, wild onions, and root vegetables they had foraged earlier with water from the same skin she’d given him to drink from.

“Where is the castle now?” Hector asks, genuinely curious. His last glimpse of the colossal structure had been as it had jumped wildly in and out of space while he and Carmilla had dodged the destruction it left in its wake. He’d wondered where it must have disappeared to.

“Rumor has it that it currently sits adjacent to the old Belmont family estate.” Aria’s eyes grow wide as she speaks. “There is supposed to be a vast repository below it; archives spanning hundreds of years, much of which has been lost to time. Can you imagine? The wealth of magical learning and occult knowledge the Belmonts have collected over the centuries, all below the towers of _ Dracula’s castle, _ and whatever lost technologies lie hidden inside.”

“Might I add, _ deirfiúr beag, _ that the Belmonts used to hunt Fae folk like us?” Iri tells her. Aria pouts at her sister.

“That was long, long ago, long before we were born. Besides, after the Fae fled Wallachia there weren’t exactly many left for them to hunt, were there?” She lowers her voice to him, leaning close to his ear. “Iri visited the castle once. She got to see the inside for herself and she refuses to tell me _ anything _ about it.”

“It was _ years _ ago, Aria. And I was not exactly given a tour.”

“No, but you lived in the castle, did you not, Hector?”

His hands still over the kindling at the mention of his name. He can feel Iri’s stare on him over the edge of her map. Hector clears his throat, suddenly feeling very put on the spot. He is careful in how he answers her question. “I’m afraid there was much of the castle I was... not expressly permitted to see.” He does not miss the small, disappointed noise from where Aria is sitting. “There were common areas: the kitchens, the formal dining room, the baths, a few studies. My fellow forgemaster and I were given access to a small private library, one I’m ashamed to admit I seldom made use of. I spent most of my time inside my own forge focused on my work.”

“Yes.” Iri stands. She comes closer. Hector watches cautiously as she kneels before his kindling. She snaps her fingers and a lone, steady flame jumps to life amidst the tinder. He jumps back and narrowly avoids burning his fingers. “Your _ work_.”

He is quiet after that. Iri stalks away to double check the perimeter of their camp, her bow slung deftly over her shoulder. Aria sidles close beside him to place a comforting hand at his shoulder.

“Please do not mind her,” she says softly. “Iri never was very good at making friends, even when she put forth the effort. While I cannot promise you her affection, I _ can _ assure you she will spare you any cruelty.”

Hector simply averts his gaze, turning his head to stare off into the trees. The truth was that he could hardly blame her. He was just thankful the two of them had deemed him worthy enough to come back for, pitiable and burdensome as he felt. “I struggle to make friends myself,” he murmurs quietly.

“Nonsense.” He can hear the reassurance in her voice. She passes him a handful of the mushrooms. He separates their caps from the stalks, ripping them into smaller pieces the same as he’d watched her do. “I find you quite pleasant to talk to.”

Hector does not fight the small smile that finds its way to his face. The two of them sit in companionable silence as they continue to prepare their vegetables for a mild, manageable soup. They do not eat meat, and Aria had apologized for the lack of it but Hector finds he does not mind. While the dish is simple in seasoning and ingredients it is leagues beyond the vile gruel he’s been forced to eat for the past several months. Hector had never been fond of porridge, nor any food so soft and textureless in general, but since leaving Carmilla’s castle he has vowed to never eat it again as long as he lives.

Iri returns some time later, seemingly satisfied with their precautionary measures. Another glamour had been placed over the campsite when they’d decided to stop, and while the sensation of the magic is as unsettling as it had been the first time Hector is thankful for the safety it provides them. They share a quiet meal as the sun climbs higher in the sky overhead. Aria had liberally salted the broth with a small pouch she kept in her bag and he can’t quite remember the last time he’s tasted something so comforting. When they’ve finished and he helps to empty and wash the cook pot, he feels both fortified and nourished by the first real food he’s been served since he left the comfort of Dracula’s castle.

Aria gives up her bedroll for him. Initially he had refused, content to wrap himself in his gifted cloak, but she insists.

“Iri and I can share,” she explains, thrusting the bedroll into his hands not unlike she had the clothes she gave him the day before. “We will need to take turns keeping watch either way, and we can get by on less sleep than you can.”

Hector is stunned at her generosity, and a little bit unnerved by her last statement. He thanks her sincerely and she only smiles at him in reply.

He sleeps flanked by them, one at each side so that he lies sandwiched in the middle. Iri mutters something about staying close for security but he suspects it is an attempt to keep him warm. Neither of them seem to be as affected by the cold as he is. The early springtime chill is not nearly as unbearable in the daytime, however the ground leeches much of the heat from his body even through the bedroll. Hector curls into himself as tightly as he can, mindful of Iri’s presence at his spine while Aria’s shoulder nudges against his own.

They allow him nearly six hours of uninterrupted rest. At some point they must switch watches because it is Aria that wakes him close to dusk, but he sleeps through it.

“Did you see anything?” Iri asks her as they break down camp, and Aria shakes her head at her sister. “Good. Let’s make use of our head start while we can, then.”

While far from refreshed, the few hours’ rest does help to restore him. Even with stiff joints and achy limbs from sleeping on the ground, Hector feels replenished, and as they resume their trek to Budapest the weight on his heart feels a little lighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me a comment with some feedback! I love reading them!!!!!!!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _deirfiúr beag:_ little sister


	6. Part VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: graphic depictions of sexual assault and abuse
> 
> I want to apologize if the Irish translations are a little iffy; I'm using Google Translate and some vocabulary websites.
> 
> Please leave me some feedback if you enjoyed this chapter! I'm trying to get these out as quickly as I can before they announce the next season.
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

_ There is a pulley system ingrained into the ceiling above the forge work table. Occasionally Carmilla’s people will sling ropes through it to lift the dead weight of larger corpses Hector simply cannot manipulate on his own. In Dracula’s castle he’d had the help of assistants and his own night creatures to aid him in such a task, but that was not a privilege he was afforded in this place. As the stamina left him bit by bit with each passing night, as he grew weaker with each denied meal and impromptu beating, the apparatus was seeing more and more use. _

_ For instance, at the moment Carmilla was using it to _ hang _ him. _

_ His toes scrabble against the stone slab as he fights to support his weight. The blunt bite of the collar around his neck digs into his windpipe with each passing heartbeat. Hector clutches at the metal even against the strain on his neck. His fingers claw inward at the lip in a frenzied attempt to lessen the pressure against his throat, to allow himself some room to gasp in as much air as he can. It is not enough. _

_ “I am _ very _ disappointed in you, Hector.” Carmilla’s voice sounds as though he were hearing it from underwater, but it reaches him all the same. “You used to be so well behaved. So… docile.” One of her long, crimson nails drags threateningly over the rounded bone of his ankle. He twitches away in reflex, desperate to get away from her even as he fights for his life. “I have to admit,” she murmurs, and he burns at the poorly concealed mirth in her voice, “I hardly even recognize you now.” _

_ His arms tremble with the effort to hold the vice from his airway. Spots dance in front of his eyes as hot tears cloud what little vision he has in the low light. Her cold fingers close around the wasted width of his calf and he makes a pitiful choking noise. His heart thunders behind his ears as the pressure threatens to burst between his temples. _

_ “Miron is beside himself, you know. If I weren’t here to protect you, I dare say he would have ripped your throat out by now. Far more brutish than I personally would have gone about it, but…” _

_ She trails off as if she is expecting some sort of response from him. Hector sputters against the inevitable pull of the chain. He can feel the sweat-damp grip of his fingers slipping from the steadfast metal of the collar. Carmilla’s touch is lost to him in the chaos of oxygen deprivation. It bleeds somewhere between the lightheadedness and the tingling slowly beginning to swallow up the feeling in his limbs. _

_ “A person with decent manners might think to thank me for that.” _

_ He cannot breathe. There is no air flowing to his lungs, no air to keep him alive. He is dying, and he cannot breathe. _

_ “Oh, well this is simply no fun.” _

_ He hears her cross the room to the suspension mechanism keeping the chain taught. There is the sound of clinking steel and then the deafening slam of a lever. Hector’s soul nearly leaves his body as he flails in the throes of gravity. He falls gracelessly into a heap atop the stone work table. Instantly his chest heaves to expand and he draws in a grating, arduous gasp for air. It rakes against his windpipe, dry and excruciating and euphoric. He coughs, again and again, choking on as much air as he is breathing. _

_ He whimpers, or something similar through his newly damaged throat, when Carmilla tangles her fingers through his hair. She does not yank, but simply pulls so that he looks up at her with hazy and unfocused eyes. Her face is so deceptively sympathetic as she gazes down at him. Hector knows what she is expecting and he wishes, as he wets his cracked lips to speak, that he had the strength to hate her in that moment. _

_ “Thank you, Carmilla,” he wheezes. She gives him a small approving sound that echoes impossibly loud in the space between them. He trembles, unable to control the tremors that wrack his frame, as she lowers her head to place a cold kiss to his damp cheek. He _ loathes _ the sticky feeling of her lips at his skin. When she pulls away he refuses to look her in the eye again. _

_ “Poor puppy,” she says, mockingly sympathetic. Hector gulps in great breaths of air and wishes the sound would drown out her words. “Miron is cruel to you, isn’t he?” _

_ Hector narrows his eyes in suspicion at the question. Knowing she expects an answer, he nods slowly. _

_ “Does it always hurt when he touches you?” _

_ He balks internally at that. What the fuck does she mean by that? Of course it hurts when Miron touches him. He has scars all over his body to attest to that, wounds both fresh and healed over decorating his flesh like a demented artist’s canvas. How could it _ not _ hurt him? _

_ He nods again. _

_ “And you’re—well, _ were_, I suppose—a virgin?” Vitriol sits at the back of his throat like bile at the barely contained giggle in her voice. “Has no one ever touched you for pleasure?” _

_ Hector can feel the blood turning to ice in his arteries. _

_ Carmilla’s claws slowly, deliberately trail up over his navel, his ribs, just below his sternum, the drag of them like so many slithering snakes underneath his skin. He wants to scream, can feel it welling in the ragged depths of his throat, but he _ can’t. _ He is frozen where he lies sprawled in a crumpled heap, and when she presses him down, down so that he lies on his back, he shows her his belly like the frightened, pitiful dog she likens him to. The fear coils underneath his heart like a writhing animal, and she— _

“Hector?”

He shudders awake with a bitten off cry.

The ground beneath him, cold and solid, replaces the unforgiving stone of the forge. There is late evening sunlight in his eyes rather than the gloom he’d known in the castle, and it is not Carmilla gazing down at him but a shaken and concerned Aria. Her eyes are almost impossibly wide as she watches him, and when she reaches her hand out for his own he snatches his fingers away. His chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath.

“Are you all right?” she asks in a very small voice. Hector swallows down the panicked whine that is nearly his answer, opting instead for a restrained nod. “You were trembling. Did you have a bad dream?”

“We should go.” Iri interrupts her question and Hector is silently grateful for the change in subject. Aria does not press him further. She simply holds her hand out to help him to his feet, and he quietly takes it with a murmured expression of thanks.

It is an hour or so before twilight, and the sun is spending its final minutes illuminating the land in a wash of golden haze. As Hector helps them break down the camp he braces himself for the chill of the night air. They’ll be walking likely until sunrise and while he has so far managed to keep up, he is not looking forward to the next leg of their journey.

The cough had started little over three days ago. At first it had simply been a stubborn tickle at the back of his throat, one he’d been able to ignore easily and quell with a deep breath or a sip of cold water. Iri and Aria have no qualms about stopping so he might rest; grateful as he is to no longer be a prisoner, he is far from the picture of health. As time had passed the early spring weather and sleeping outdoors had aided the tremor in taking further root in his lungs. Now, as he rolls up his borrowed bedroll, he tries to stifle the dry, hacking cough that rattles his chest into his sleeve. It leaves his ribs sore and his throat raw, and Aria purses her lips.

“I do not like the sound of that.” She pulls her satchel from her shoulder, leaning against the crystal-adorned staff that Hector has come to suspect is far more than a simple walking stick. “Here; chew this,” she tells him, holding out something green and leafy so that he might take it. “Keep it against your cheek. It will help you to breathe more easily.”

“Thank you.” He pops it into his mouth. The plant, he realizes as he chews, is peppermint, and the first cooling swallow does soothe his throat. It does little to assuage the crackling tremble in his lungs but he can now at least draw breath without doubling over.

“Are you well enough to travel?” Iri asks, and he is taken aback by the note of genuine worry he can hear in the words.

“I can manage.” He truly hopes he is not lying. Iri’s face leads him to believe she is not entirely convinced, but she says no more on the matter.

Aria gently touches his elbow. “Tell me if that begins to wear off. I have a little left in my pack and I can find more if need be.”

“I will,” he assures her, and the two of them turn to follow Iri further into the woods.

* * *

They manage to walk until nearly dawn before Hector collapses.

The cough does not subside, no matter how many peppermint leaves Aria manages to feed him. It dogs him all throughout the night as if the chilly air were only aggravating it. It grows harder and harder to catch his breath after every fit, each one more taxing than the last. Each draw of his lungs feels syrupy and sticky and wet. When it finally forces him to his knees, his head is pounding so badly he can hardly keep his balance.

“Stop,” Aria calls to her sister, and she crouches beside Hector as he hacks into his sleeve. She gasps when he pulls his hand away and the once clean linen is dotted with spots of rust-red blood. Hector stares at it as the gravity begins to sink in.

“What is the matter?” Iri asks.

“Hector,” Aira says softly, “may I listen to your lungs, please?” Hector splays a hand out over his sternum as he nods dumbly. His chest _ aches_. “Stay at his back and support him, Iri. I do not think he can sit up on his own.”

He wants to protest, to insist that yes, he can indeed hold himself up, but as Iri wordlessly complies to help he realizes that he truly can’t. His entire body feels heavy, far too heavy to move, and the effort of inhaling and exhaling against the shiver in his trachea takes everything he has. Aria places her hand just under his ribs and leans in to place her tapered ear over his chest.

“A deep breath,” she requests of him. He tries to do as she asks, he truly does, but the air catches in his throat and he retches into his palm. Something warm and wet splatters against his lips. He can taste the stale copper on his tongue. Aria asks for two more breaths and they both go about as well as the first one. He is about to refuse her the fourth when she pulls away. The perturbed look she gives Iri over his shoulder is anything but reassuring.

“What is it?” he asks, wincing at the hoarse sound of his own voice.

“There is fluid on your lungs,” she tells him. She takes his face in her hands, feeling the unnatural heat running rampant under his skin. He sighs at the touch of her chilled fingers. “And you are burning with fever. We need to make camp again. He cannot keep going like this.”

“Aria, the _ sun _ is not even up yet.” He can feel the restless energy rolling off the nervous faerie at his back. “We will be little more than sitting ducks for anyone to find so close to the road.”

“He has pneumonia,” Aria snaps at her. Hector can see her small fists balling at the fabric of her cloak. “If we keep walking it will _ kill _ him. He needs a bed, a roof over his head, a fire, and medicine. Real medicine; not peppermint leaves and parlor tricks.”

“Your magic is hardly a parlor trick, _ deirfiúr beag.” _

“But my magic cannot fix _ this.” _

Aria’s voice is thick in her throat. Hector watches as she reaches up to swipe trembling fingers at her eyes. The sight of her tears, the knowledge that they are shed on _ his _ behalf, is humbling.

“We will stop and make camp,” Iri acquiesces. “But that leaves the question of what to do after. We cannot simply sit and wait here for Carmilla’s people to be on us while Hector wastes away from fever in his lungs.”

“I will walk.” Hector wheezes the declaration with a steely sense of determination. He would walk, he tells himself. If the choice lay between walking himself to death while he choked on his own blood and waiting for vampires to drag him back to Carmilla and Miron, then he would die on his feet.

“You will do no such thing,” Iri hisses. “Do not be daft. Come on, let’s get you off the ground.”

Hector groans as Iri throws his arm over her shoulder. She stands and he rises with her. Even that small amount of exertion is enough to make him dizzy, and he clings to her in an effort to stay upright.

“How far are we from Budapest?” Aria asks quietly.

“No,” is the answer from her sister. “That is a wholly foolish idea. I am _ not _ leaving the two of you by yourselves.”

“I can protect us; I am not a child.”

“You are _ exactly _ that!”

“Iri, please.” The gentleness of her words stuns them both into silence. “Please. We do not have a choice.”

“... On my own, I could reach it before sundown. Provided there are horses and covered wagons to be had, I could make it back here in a day and a half.”

“We can get Hector to an inn room and I can find what medicine I can from an apothecary. With any luck that will keep him alive until we reach the castle.”

“What of the local healers?”

Aria curls her lip. “Hector,” she mutters blandly, “how much help do you suppose a tincture of cat’s fur and frog’s piss would be to you in your condition?”

He shudders, and Iri scoffs at his side. “Save your breath and don’t answer that.”

They lead him to a dense copse of trees further from the road. Aria helps him into his bedroll while Iri makes up a fire pit for them to light after the sun rises. Hector begins to drift in between sleeping and waking, the fever addling his consciousness. Chills rip through his muscles in powerful shivers. He can see Aria embrace her sister one last time before she departs.

“Keep up the glamour over the camp and do not leave him,” Iri barks at her. “I will be back as soon as I can.... _ Fuck_, but I do not like this, _ deirfiúr beag.” _

“We do not have a choice.” She gives her a tight smile. “Stay safe, sister. _ Go n’éirí an bóthar leat.” _

She plants a fleeting kiss to Aria’s forehead and with that Iri is gone, vanishing from the aether around them without another word. Aria stares out into the darkness for a few moments, as if she is searching for something. Hector does not know if she finds it before she turns to join him in their campsite. She settles herself warmly beside him. His eyes flutter closed at the gentle glide of her fingers over his feverish brow.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I am so sorry, Hector. We took you from that place only to endanger you more.”

“I would rather die out here with the two of you,” he rasps, the words creaking in his throat like dust, “than pass another day in that castle.”

She chuckles quietly. “The sentiment is comforting, _a chara,_ but that will not happen."

As Hector finally fades into true sleep, he thinks to himself that when he is well he will have to ask her what _ a chara _ means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please please please leave me a comment with some feedback!!! I'd love to know how I can improve my writing!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _deirfiúr beag:_ little sister
> 
> _Go n’éirí an bóthar leat:_ May the road rise to meet you
> 
> _a chara:_ my friend


	7. Part VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter took so long to get out! I had so many certifications to test for in class. This is a long one too.
> 
> Let me know what you think and leave a comment!!!!!!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Once, when Hector had been very, very young he’d fallen so ill his mother had been convinced he would die, back when he was small enough to still garner her compassion even as she found it harder and harder to love him. He’d been struck with a severe croup one winter. There had been enough money for his father to send for a doctor when it became clear he would not recover on his own. The doctor, an elderly man who took his father’s coin far too readily, had told them in no uncertain terms that the only thing for it was to wait until the disease ran its course. The old man had told his mother to boil a pot of water with a few drops of tea tree oil and keep it close to his bed, encouraging both his parents to pray. Luckily he managed to fight off the disease in the following week, thanks or no to the decrepit doctor’s advice.

Whenever his mother had been especially cross with him she often recounted that long winter, insisting that it would have been more merciful had he died to the croup. The sentiment from his own mother’s mouth had broken his heart every time he heard it, sensitive as he’d been as a child. As he wipes more blood from his lips, struggling to draw his breaths from the cold air, he cannot help but think to himself that she may have been right.

Aria flitters around him much like a hummingbird would a wilting flower. After Iri’s departure, the sun rises and she sets about at the fire preparing a simple broth for him. Hector sleeps through much of it. She wakes him periodically to encourage him to drink. He takes as much as he is able but the fever all but burns the appetite from his body. When he cannot be coaxed through more than a few sips she switches to a tea made with what herbs she has left at her disposal. More peppermint leaves to soothe his exhausted throat, echinacea to alleviate his cough, ginger root and elderberries for the fever. She brews it with water from the waterskin and it is refreshing enough that she can convince him to choke down most of it.

“Do you have any family, Hector?” she asks him. He suspects she is trying to keep him awake long enough to swallow more tea. “A place to go? Anyone to come home to?”

He thinks of the house he’d left behind near Rhodes. He would never be able to go back. The locals in the neighboring village had never been fond of him in the first place, and he had no doubt that Carmilla would eventually track him down. As for his family…

“No.” He gazes into the fire, watches the sparks dance through the coals. “My parents died when I was a child. I had no brothers or sisters.”

“Oh. And you have been on your own, all this time?” Hector nods. Aria’s eyes follow his to the jumping flames that illuminate their faces. She hugs her arms around her shins, her chin falling to rest atop her knees. “I am sorry. That must have been very lonely.”

Lonely, yes, he thinks, but lonely had kept him _ safe_. When he had been alone there had been no one to lie to him, no one to use him. No one to collar and chain him in the dark. “It’s just as well,” he mutters listlessly. “My gifts manifested when I was fairly young. I liked to keep pets that I reanimated and my parents… did not appreciate my abilities.”

“Were they cruel to you?”

He does not know how to answer that question. In as many words, yes: they had been cruel to him. Extraordinarily so in some ways. But he had since repaid their cruelty with his own and, truthfully, he’d have taken his mother and father over Carmilla on any given day. He coughs tiredly, tries to think of what to say to her. “My mother,” he says, grimacing with the effort it takes to speak, “used to say that she’d known something was wrong with me the moment I came out of her. I did not realize what she meant at the time, but…”

“What a _ horrible _ thing to say to a child.” There is a splinter of indignation in the words, a fragile edge that he’s never heard from her before. “To her own wain, no less. I… I am sorry, Hector. She was not right for saying that, for a great many reasons. You did not deserve it.”

He says nothing in reply. There are countless emotions swirling through his chest and his head that he’d thought long-since buried, and he does not have the strength to face them. They sit raw and heavy behind his sternum, fluttering through the illness in his lungs like moths that will not be calmed. Hector closes his eyes against the tears that threaten to well and thinks of how much he should like to sleep.

The fever only makes the nightmares _ worse_. At first they had simply been memories, flashbacks of whatever Carmila or Miron had done to him. The fever robs him of the ability to understand that they are only memories as parts of his dreams and the waking world begin to meld together. Any sleep he does manage to find is hardly restful. Hector wakes shivering in the aftermath, still able to feel claws in his hair, teeth in his skin, fingers grappling at his limbs. He twists against the comfort of Aria’s bedroll as he drags himself into wakefulness.

Her hands find him in the haze of it all. She sweeps gentle fingertips across his overheated face, brushing away any tears she finds there. At first he struggles against it, tries to wrench himself from her touch as the memories of pale stares and cold smiles flash behind his eyelids. She calmly whispers his name until he stills, and the rapid rhythm of his panicked breathing slowly calms in his chest.

“It is all right,” she murmurs to him. “It is only me.” Her hands feel so unimaginably _ comforting _ over him. There is a distant humming that emanates from her skin, a gentle blue glow that illuminates the very air around them. Hector sighs as her fingertips gently glide over his closed eyes, his burning cheeks, then his clammy brow. He knows, beneath the discomfort and the exhaustion, that it must be some sort of magic. Had he been less fever-addled he might have even been curious enough to ask her what exactly it is she is doing, but the relief that follows in the wake of her touch floods him so overwhelmingly he cannot bring himself to ready the question at his lips. 

He makes a realization as she stares down at him, her wide, strange gaze peering down into his. There is something odd about the two sisters’ eyes; he’d never been quite able to pinpoint it before. Now though, his mind clouded with that eerie focus fever bestows upon him, he can see it. She has two irises in each eye. Two bands of endless green, separated by a thin ring of black. It is both beautiful and unsettling all at once.

“Go back to sleep,” she tells him. “There will be no more nightmares; you can rest now.”

He does sleep. Deeply. So deeply, in fact, that he does not wake again until the sun is beginning to make its descent past the horizon. With no monsters to haunt his slumber he feels a little more renewed. The fever still courses through his blood, the suffocating vice of his lungs still trying to rob him of each breath he takes, but he is able to sit up on his own. Lamentably his return to the waking world is accompanied by the damnable cough. While it no longer coats his mouth in blood it is no less debilitating. Each hacking exhalation rang in the air around them, deafeningly loud in the quiet hush of the woods.

Aria brews one last batch of her medicinal tea before she puts out the fire. They take shelter from the wind under the makeshift lean-to as they try to quietly settle in for the night. It is the first one Hector has not spent on the move since they left Styria. He shivers as he sips his swiftly cooling tea. Each time he coughs, Aria presses more peppermint leaves into his hand. They help, but he knows her supply is dwindling. The cough wears on his throat, yes, but there is another reason to suppress it. The night is deathly silent around them, and each time he has to cough it seems to be the only sound for miles. Aria does not have to voice her concern for him to understand anything out there could potentially be led straight to them.

Hector eventually manages to fall asleep again. It is a welcome reprieve from the coughing fits. He wakes well after sunrise feeling both more rested and more worn than he had the previous day. Aria sits vigilant at his side and he wonders guiltily if she has been awake all night.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asks her, wincing at the gravelly sound of his voice. She smiles serenely at him. Her eyes are heavy but bright.

“You need not worry about me,” she assures him, but it does not pacify his concern. He has no idea as to Aria’s age. She seems very young, no older than fifteen at the most, and the idea of a child putting his well-being before her own does not sit right with him.

“I can keep watch for a while.” He offers the idea genuinely but the labored cough that follows lends him little in the way of convincing her. She simply shakes her head, resting the backs of her knuckles over his brow to feel the temperature there.

“Do you think you could manage anymore broth today? I can already tell more tea will be in order.”

His stomach sits in knots beneath his heart, abdominal muscles aching with the effort it takes to cough. The thought of swallowing anything past his raw throat makes him want to squirm. As he watches her go through the motions of boiling water over the fire, he asks, “Are you trained as a healer?”

“Mmm... yes, and no.” She tilts her head in his direction. “I was in training before Iri and I left our homeland. I have yet to finish, but what I did manage to learn has proven to be quite useful. Though, I must admit, treating mortals is somewhat different from treating my own people.” She ladles some of the broth into a wooden bowl, pours the tea into a cup for him. “Someday I will go back to finish.”

“After you have found your friend?”

“Amongst other things. Here.” Aria hands him the herbal-smelling tea. Hector blows some steam from the cup before taking a tentative sip. It is pungent and a little bitter, but he is growing more used to it with each drink. “Dracula’s wife was a doctor, was she not?”

“I believe so. An excellent one. I never had the chance to meet her, before…”

“I would have liked to know her, to study under her; there are so few truly learned doctors in this part of the world.” Aria bites her lip in thought. Her eyes glaze over for a brief moment. They fall to the ground. “Her death was a great loss.”

“Her murder, you mean.”

She smiles sadly. “It is a shame. The church is meant to provide for its followers; to keep them safe and give them _ hope_. And yet it only seems to take from them, knowingly and not. To think of what your mortal civilizations could accomplish were there more people like Lisa Tepes to learn, to teach, and to grow.”

“It is why his war was begun.” Hector says it quietly. He can feel the way she stiffens at the words, even from across the camp. She turns to face him, her face stern but without malice.

“And it was a mad, _ despicable _ thing to do. To honor the memory of a doctor, no less.” She crosses her arms to hug herself, fingers gripping tightly at the upper part of her arms. “Truly, Hector, I cannot fathom how someone like you was swept up in something so utterly monstrous.”

To his surprise a wave of pure, burning _ shame _ swells in his belly. Part of him balks at the thought of being admonished by a small, indignant young girl, but another part is _ listening _ to her. “He told me it was to be merciful. A cull, of sorts. The end result would have been a docile and controlled population that could be coerced, like—”

“Like animals?” Silence follows in the wake of her conclusion. He cannot think of a reply. “I have seen the products of this failed war. Iri and I passed through whole villages, empty save for the corpses dragged through the streets. Not a _ soul _ was spared. Not even the children in their beds. There was no mercy in their deaths. I am sorry, but Dracula _ lied _ to you.”

“I know that now.” He says it snappishly, and is immediately contrite. Aria does not seem to begrudge him for it.

“Even if he had not; people are not animals. They are simply people. There is good and bad in all of them, some with more of one than the other, but… they are still people.”

“And what of those filled with cruelty?” he asks her. “You cannot comprehend what depravity humans are capable of. You are not even human yourself.”

“Oh, I can comprehend it.” She fixes him with her sad, wide eyes. Hector wants to look away from her face but he can’t force himself to. There is so much more to that statement than its words, and his throat feels thick with the weight of it. “Please understand that I can.”

“So why defend them?”

“Because they are yet worthy of it. I have seen the things I have seen, know what I know and _ still _ I would stand on their behalf. Just as I do yours.”

Hector cannot string the words together for a retort. He closes his eyes, struggling against the thoughts whirling through his mind. He didn’t know what to believe anymore. He’d been so sure before of the path he’d chosen to walk at Dracula’s side, as his faithful forgemaster. The architect of his war. And what had it bought him? Nothing but suffering. Misery and betrayal. That of his own and… the faces of all those mutilated children that passed through the doors of Carmilla’s forge flicker behind his eyelids, one after another. The air around him grows thick with their ghosts. His flooded lungs lurch for breath, but he cannot find it. He cannot breathe.

“Hector.”

His eyes fly open and Aria is there next to him, her face the picture of concern. He gasps for air. He can feel his heart beating wildly beneath the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He clutches for her hands and she clutches back, fingers clenched tightly around his own.

“Deep breaths, please,” she requests of him. Hector draws one in, fights the crackling in his airway to swallow it down. Releases it in a clumsy exhale. Another, and then another until he finally no longer feels like he might choke. He trembles in the aftermath. His hands shake in Aria’s. He feels _ exhausted_. Like all the sleep he’d managed the night before has just been expended.

“I am sorry. I should not have agitated you so.” Aria presses the cup containing the remainder of his tea back into his fingers. “Drink that down and try to rest. Iri should be back soon.”

Hector gulps down the now cold tea. He falls back to sleep not long after, contradictions and doubts lingering between his ears. Thankfully there are no dreams for him.

He does not wake again until hours later, with night already fallen dark and foreboding around the camp. The fire is gone. Aria kneels beside him. Something about her posture sets his teeth on edge, the hairs at the back of his neck to raise. “What is the hour?” he whispers through his dry throat.

“Late,” is the clipped answer. Hector can see her expression in the moonlight, her eyes trained on the darkness in the distance and her brows tightly drawn. “Iri should have been back by now.”

His stomach sinks. His mind staggers at the realization that he has managed to sleep through the entire day. The spasm in his lungs comes on suddenly, and Hector cringes as he attempts to stifle it in the crook of his arm. Aria rubs soothing circles into his back as he retches and tries to keep as quiet as he can. An owl hoots somewhere in the trees above them and she jumps so abruptly it startles him too.

Something sinister pollutes the atmosphere of their darkened camp. It is fear, he recognizes. He knows it by the sour, alkaline taint that sits heavy at the back of his tongue. The air seems wet with it, like the suffocating damp before a summer thunderstorm. It crawls over his skin. He shivers.

“Could she have been delayed?”

“... It is possible.” Aria shifts uncomfortably next to him. “Though I shudder to think by what.”

Her head snaps directly in front of them. Hector stills. He strains his ears for any disturbance. Everything is quiet. He wonders if perhaps Aria is able to hear things he can’t.

She stands. Reaches for the crystal-adorned staff leaning against the tree.

“Stay here.”

Hector watches, frozen, as she makes for the perimeter of their camp. _ No wandering off on your own, _ Iri’s voice says to him from the past. _ Do not leave him. _ He wants to call out Aria, to beg her to stay. Panic flutters menacingly behind his breastbone as his eyes follow her into the woods and then she is gone. She slips between the trees and disappears from view, silently as a shadow.

He waits. Counts his heartbeats. Breathes. The forest seems to collapse in on him. He should get up to follow her, he thinks. He cannot let her face whatever danger awaits her in the dark alone. Again, he thinks about how young she looked, how small her hands had been in his.

There is a sharp, bitten-off yelp from deep in the woods.

Hector drags himself to his feet. He is scrambling to remember which direction she’d gone, trying to postulate how quickly he could get to her when he feels the glamor peel away from his skin. The sensation is as familiar now as it is unmistakable. He covers his mouth against the need to call her name. Paralyzed by fear, all he can do is sit and steady himself for whatever comes next.

Footsteps shuffling through the leaves startle him, fast approaching the camp, and he barely has time to see Aria’s face before she runs to him. She has a hand clasped to her ear. Fresh blood trickles between her fingers to stain them sticky red.

“They’re coming,” she pants. “Four of them. I can hold them off but you need to hide, before—”

An arrow whizzes through the air between the two of them. Hector staggers back at the same time Aria throws her hand out. A great rippling barrier envelopes them both a split second before it catches the next few that are fired in succession. They fall uselessly to the ground, and Hector recognizes the black and white of Styria colors in their feather fletchings. He has a brief moment to try and warn Aria before she shoves him back and away from her.

Three vampires step into the moonlight at the camp’s perimeter. Dressed in light leather armor, they leer menacingly at him through the dark. He watches, petrified, as they all lower their bows. Aria squares her shoulders at them. She places herself strategically between Hector and Carmilla’s men.

“Run back to your mistress,” she barks at them, “and I will let you leave with your lives.”

He hears one of them scoff. Another pipes up. “We’re not going anywhere without him, _ pixie.” _ He gestures to Hector. “Our lady does not take kindly to being burgled.”

“He is ours. You cannot have him.”

Hector blinks at the declaration.

The one who had spoken before throws his head back and lets out a mocking laugh. “How very like a little fucking faerie thief!” His hand reaches for a hilt at his belt. “I would say I’ll enjoy ripping the wings off you, but it looks as though someone’s already gone and _ done _ it.”

Her knuckles pale as her fingers tighten around the staff.

“Take her living if you can. Faerie blood’s worth its weight in gold in these parts.”

The din of ringing metals fills the air around them as swords are drawn. Hector hears Aria whisper something under her breath. The crystal at the top of the staff begins to glow brightly white and she knocks it once against the ground. The winds picks up around them.

As she takes a step towards them, Hector realizes she had said there were four. There are only three vampires crawling out from between the trees.

A clawed hand snatches his head back. Hector yelps as he stumbles backwards, reaching to dislodge the fingers tangling themselves in his hair to tear it from where he’d tied it. He twists against the hold as dirty curls fall into his face.

His face is yanked at an angle and he stares up, horrified, into terrible, red eyes.

_ “No!” _ he screams. It is lost amongst the fighting, but Miron sneers at the sound. Hector thrashes as hard as he can. He sinks his nails into the hard leather gauntlets that grip at him, tries in vain to wrench them away. “Get off me!” he shrieks. “Get the fuck off of me!”

“Oh, but I have _ missed _ you, forgemaster.”

Miron drops him to the ground and Hector goes hard to his knees. It knocks the very wind from his already bubbling lungs. He coughs feebly at Miron’s feet, eyes watering as he chokes. The toe of his boot tilts Hector’s face up.

“Now you listen to me, you little mutt.” Miron kicks. The force sends him sprawling onto his back. He watches through hazy eyes as the boot is lowered to step firmly over his chest. “The next time some little faerie cunt offers to steal you away while you think no one is looking, I urge you to stay fucking put. Because whatever she promised you is _ not _ worth the shit storm you are in for.”

Hector’s fingers scrabble against the sole of the boot that is slowly beginning to sink down onto his chest. Behind Miron he can see Aria as she holds off the other three. She hurls spells at them one after the other, fending off their blows with the grip of her staff. Her back is to the two of them, and the realization sinks like a boulder into the pit of his belly. If Miron decided to turn around he would be on her before she would ever know. He will kill her, no matter what the other soldier said about blood or gold. He knows he will.

He has to run. Miron would chase him. He has to get him away from Aria.

“I can’t breathe,” he sputters, hoping to god Miron still has enough sense in him to understand if he brings Carmilla a dead and suffocated forgemaster she will not be pleased. To his relief, Miron relents. With a roll of his eyes he lifts his boot from Hector’s sternum. Hector takes one deep breath, just enough to steady his nerves before he dashes to his feet. He can hear the enraged growl at his back as he runs, followed by Aria’s desperate shout of his name.

He does not make it far. Doesn’t _ need _ to. He just needs to be far enough away to put some semblance of distance between himself and Aria to ensure she is safe from Miron’s wrath. The burning in his lungs threatens to cripple him as he sprints but he pushes past it. Miron catches up to him just as he reaches a clearing in the trees. Hector hears him lunge for him before a hand closes around his ankle. It jerks him back and he manages to catch himself with his hands before he fully hits the dirt.

Miron crawls over him. Hector’s chest heaves between his body weight and the impassive ground. Raw panic crawls up his windpipe at how horrifyingly familiar the sensation of being trapped like this is, taking up the space his air should be. He can feel the frothing in his lungs as he struggles to breathe. Miron flips him over on his back like a rag doll. Hector’s head reels between the change in his balance and the lack of oxygen.

“I am going to _ break _ you,” Miron hisses into his face. Hector has a split second the take in the wide, crazed eyes, the dark hair falling into them, the glistening saliva slicked over pale lips. Miron’s fist collides with his cheekbone and the force of it flings his head to the side. He lies still, disoriented, and coughs wetly. The taste of his own blood spreads stale over his palate. Miron’s breastplate digs into his weak chest, constricting his efforts to draw in breath. “Do you hear me, forgemaster? Carmilla is not here to save you this time.”

“Can’t…” he manages to wheeze, unable to get anything else out. Miron laughs cruelly.

“Oh, that’s not going to work this time.”

Fingers rip away at the collar of his cloak. Miron pulls his head back by his hair. It stretches his throat out for him, bare and vulnerable in the chilly air. Hector shivers.

“She’ll… kill you,” he chokes out in a last ditch effort to save himself from what he knows is coming next. It does not seem to work. Miron laughs in his face.

“You should be far less worried about what she’ll do to me and instead think of what she has in store for _ you.” _ His teeth glitter dangerously in the weak moonlight. Hector whimpers. “Besides, after all the shit I’ve had to wade through because of you…” Miron flicks his tongue over a long, lethal tooth. “I think it’ll be worth it.”

All he can muster forth as Miron sinks his teeth into his skin is a miserable, pained groan. It _ hurts_. Like knives in his throat, exacerbated by each jostling swallow of his blood that follows. He doesn’t know which is worse: the awful gnawing of Miron’s teeth over his skin, the watery sensation of the very life being drained from him, or the oppressive weight of him bearing down on his tender lungs. Tears flood his eyes and rain down his cheeks. He sobs openly, both for air and for mercy, each as likely to come as the other.

Hector twists pitifully beneath Miron. He cannot breathe. He cannot breathe. He is going to die beneath this monster and he cannot _ breathe, hecannotbreathehecannotbreathehecannotbr_

There is a great, deafening crack in the woods behind them, and it is followed by a resounding chorus of shrieks. Miron pulls himself away from Hector’s throat, teeth ripping against the initial puncture wounds as he goes. Hector crushes his palm to the wound. His own blood pulses hotly against his skin.

“What the _ fuck_—”

A narrow whistling noise hurtles toward them, followed by a hollow, meaty _ thok. _ Hector watches as Miron’s face goes hauntingly slack above him. The vampire sits up on his heels, turns to look behind him. The weight finally lifted from Hector’s chest, he gulps in a croaky breath. The relief brings with it a fresh wave of tears so powerful they almost obscure the sight of the glittering arrow lodged firmly in his back.

_ “Get away from him.” _

Iri’s voice cuts through the chaos and it is heavy and terrible with rage. Hector watches as Miron staggers above him, dumbly flailing as he tries to reach for the arrow.

“Pixie _ bitch,” _ he spits. If he had anything more to say, however, it is cut off by the grip of Iri’s bow caught tight over his throat. She slings him off of and away from Hector with as much effort as it takes a child to throw a toy. Miron groans as he hits the ground. The shaft of the arrow snaps as it breaks off. “He is _ mine!” _

“He belongs to the Free Folk now!” Iri yells in his face. Miron’s hand darts out for her throat. She slaps it away like she might an insect. “Not to you, not to your mistress, not to any of you fucking monsters!”

Hector struggles to pull himself off of his back. Iri is bent over Miron, straddling his chest as she deals him blow after blow with her fist. Miron claws for her face, but she dodges each reach of his hands with the same furious grace she’d used to throw him to the ground. Her knuckles are split bloody over his fangs. When she finishes with her fists, she reaches into the quiver at her back to pull out a fresh arrow. Miron’s head lolls back against the dead grass, dazed in the wake of her assault.

Iri sinks the arrowhead into his right eye.

The resulting bellow is chilling. Hector watches as she pulls it out to sink it into the other eye, blood spattering over her face. She aims for his throat next, and Miron’s shout gurgles in his mouth as he chokes on his own blood. The screaming eventually stops and there is nothing to mask the wet slosh of each stab to his skull.

He should be disgusted. Repulsed. Horrified. Hector is anything _ but _ those things at the sight of Miron’s blood running like rivers over the dirt beneath them. The vindication of it buzzes through his nerves even as he struggles to breathe. Iri finally stops what seems like hours later, her jacket and hands soaked red and sticky. There are flecks of it caught in her hair, tousled loose from her braid in the skirmish and curling wildly around her head. She wipes what has splattered over lips on her sleeve.

“Iri,” he calls weakly to her. His hand trembles at the wound to his throat. She whips around to face him. Her strange eyes are wild in the aftermath, but they soften as she sees him crumpled into himself on the ground.

“Let me see your neck,” she says as she strides closer. He flinches when she kneels beside him, her fingers gently prying his own from his skin. The wound leaks feebly as his hand is peeled away. “Easy, now.” She prods tenderly at the puncture wounds. “It is all right. It is already starting to clot.” The sound of tearing fabric splits the air, and she presses a length of cloth ripped from her own cloak against his neck to tie it around. “There. That will do for now, until we can get it cleaned and properly dressed.”

“I am light-headed,” he tells her.

“You need rest, and food. And lots and _ lots _ of medicine.” She looks him up and down. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

He shakes his head.

“Can you stand?”

“I don’t… I don't know.”

“Here, lean against me.” She tugs his arm over her shoulder and _ pulls _ him to his feet. He follows with a pained groan. “There’s a good lad. Come on.”

He pauses over Miron’s prone form at their feet. Iri gives him the moment he needs to reflect. And he _ needs _it. Miron’s face is a nearly unrecognizable mess of blood and raw, flayed flesh. “Is he dead?” he asks her.

“Nearly.” She spits. “Will be after sunrise, anyhow.”

Hector lifts his foot to grind his boot straight down into Miron’s groin. The body beneath him gives an involuntary twitch. He does not relent until he feels something tear under his heel.

As they start the trek back to the camp, Aria comes running towards them out of the woods. The shoulder of her cloak is stained with blood trailing from the lacerated tip of her ear. She leans heavily on her staff, one arm held in close to her body. Hector nearly collapses with relief at the sight of her alive and relatively hale.

“Hector,” she says in a small, wavering voice. Her bottom lip quivers as she speaks. “Oh, I thought he had killed you. I thought you were dead.”

“Not dead,” Iri tells her. “A pint or so light on blood, but otherwise very lucky.”

Aria throws her arms around his middle. Hector freezes in her embrace, wholly unprepared for it, but she is careful not to squeeze him. “You shouldn’t have run,” she sniffs into his jacket. “Your lungs… it could have killed you, and there would have been nothing for me to do for it.”

“You couldn’t see him.” Hector licks at his dry, cracked lips. “I needed to get him away from you. I knew he would chase me.”

“Oh, you brave, reckless fool.” She turns her head to look at Iri. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“Bloody fucking horse merchants trying to give me the go around. If we were not going back through the city I would have just stolen one and tethered it to the first wagon I found. Haven’t had so much trouble with merchants since we left Paris.” She places a red-stained hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I am sorry, _ deirfiúr beag. _ I should _ not _ have left the two of you alone.”

Aria shakes her head. “It is all right, Iri. Everything is all right.” She pulls her sister into their fragile embrace. Hector trembles with more emotion than he knows what to do with: satisfaction, adrenaline, vindication. _ Relief_. Timidly, he raises his arms to place them over each sister’s shoulders. His hands shake as he holds them.

They linger there for a long while, so long that the sun rises over their heads to wash them all in its gentle, golden light. As morning lifts away the dark cast of night, Iri looks up to gaze out over the landscape. She clears her throat. Aria separates herself from them to gaze back towards the camp. She takes a place at Hector’s other side to support him.

“Come on,” she says softly. “Let’s be on our way.”

They leave the woods, and as they pass through the clearing all Hector can see that is left of Miron is a dusty pile of fetid, cold ashes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please please don't forget to leave a comment!!!! I'd love to know what you guys think of where this is going!


	8. Part VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: vague description of sexual assault and abuse in this chapter.
> 
> This will probably be the last chapter I get out before the Christmas holiday. I hope you guys enjoy it!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Three corpses now decorate their compromised camp. Each is encased in a cage-like cocoon of thick, thorn covered vines. Great, blooming white flowers adorn the vines in places, sweet smelling and exquisite against the dreary backdrop of the woods. Each of the vampires’ faces is contorted in an expression of pure agony. The thorns that pierce their skin are crusted over with blackened red. There seems to be no blood left in their bodies.

Aria hardly pays them any mind as she hastily gathers their things in her satchel. Hector recalls the haunting, screaming chorus that had erupted from the trees. He had been so certain her voice had been one of them. As he catalogues the destruction trapped within each botanical coffin, he is thankful it had not been. Chilled, and slightly horrified, but thankful.

“Your arm,” Iri demands of her. She holds out her hand, waits patiently for her sister to show her. Aria slowly extends the arm in question. Her fingers are trembling.

“‘Tis only a sprain.” Hector can see the creasing of her brow as Iri presses tenderly into her wrist. The skin is beginning to bruise, dusky blue and purple around the bones. It looks painful. “I shall sort it out once we are safely on the road.”

“There is a brook not far from here. We can wash ourselves of the skirmish and replenish our water supplies. It would not do to try and enter the city fresh from a fight and covered in vampire blood.”

Hector touches at the cloth still wound around his neck. The wound beneath throbs distantly, the pain temporarily numbed in the aftermath of adrenaline. He coughs tiredly into his sleeve. He can taste the blood at the back of his teeth.

At the other end of the clearing is where Iri had left their new means of travel: a red mare, her forehead blazed with white fur, attached to a sturdy covered wagon.

“Her name is Pepper,” Iri mentions. “She’ll see us to the border, and then we’ll exchange her at a coach house.”

Hector offers the horse his hand. Pepper softly lips at his palm. He reaches up to stroke her muzzle and she butts her head politely into his touch. It is oddly calming.

“Here, Hector.”

Aria has climbed into the wagon’s bed and is holding her uninjured arm out for him. He gives Pepper one final pat before allowing himself to be helped up. The sudden movement weighs heavily on his body, and he lets out a breathless gasp as he lands inside the wagon. Aria removes her cloak. She drapes it over him without a word, and he opens his mouth to protest but she shoves the water skin at him.

“You should drink.” Her face is drawn and pale as she gazes at him. “I would like to listen to your lungs again in a few moments. I am… concerned the exertion of running has strained them overmuch.”

It has. Hector can feel it even as he sits still. His chest rattles with each inhale, more so than it had before. His lungs are a short, shallow rhythm that echoes in his ears. Even something as simple as drinking from the water skin winds him. He takes several seconds between each labored swallow to try and catch his breath as it slips through his fingers. At times he cannot even muster the air to cough, his windpipe spasming against the weakness in his body. He hands the water skin back to Aria with shaky hands, afraid if he takes anymore he might choke.

Iri takes up the reins at the head of the wagon. With a click of her tongue to the horse the wagon creaks, its wheels at once turning over the road. Hector shuts his eyes against the sudden vertigo that threatens to unseat him. Fortunately, the trip to the steam is a short one. Iri helps him down from the wagon bed and he leans heavily as he is led to the water. Aria has dipped the mouth of the water skin against the current and, amazingly, it does not seem to fill as the water passes into it. He would be fascinated were he not so miserable.

“I will make a poultice for your throat.” Aria’s fingers gently worry at the makeshift bandage around his neck. “There are clean bandages in my pack. Wash it as thoroughly as you can here and we will patch it up.”

Hector nods tiredly. She tenderly touches his shoulder, squeezing gently, and then turns back towards the wagon. He and Iri sit at the water’s edge in weary, empty silence. As he pulls away the fabric around his neck, wincing at the tug against tender skin, he spares a glance at her. She has removed her jacket and is attempting to rinse as much of the stained blood from it as she can. It seems a bit of a lost cause and he suspects if the heavy wool had been a lighter color it would have been entirely unsalvageable.

Beneath the jacket she wears a thin, ill-fitting cotton shift. Hector means to avert his eyes and afford her some privacy when he notices the too-wide collar has left an entire shoulder blade bare to the chilly morning sunlight, and suddenly he cannot look away. The skin over the scapula is marred with a deep, pitted defect that nearly hollows out a part of her back. Surrounded by freckled skin sits a crater of ropy, mottled, silvery pink scar tissue. There are smaller jagged incisions surrounding it, like loose threads on a gruesome tapestry. It is as if a portion of her has been crudely cut away.

_ I thought all faeries had wings. _

_ They do. _

He does not have to ask to know there is a matching scar on the opposite shoulder.

Iri turns her head by a fraction. It is enough for her to catch his stare. She holds his gaze for a few moments. He cannot decipher whatever it is he sees in her eyes, and he is not entirely sure he wants to. He looks away, ashamed, and tries to busy himself with washing the red from his hands in the frigid water.

“It is all right, Hector.” Iri’s voice sounds strained, and he is disinclined to believe her. “It’s no secret that they are missing. You have probably managed to piece as much together on your own.”

He has, but truthfully he has not given it much thought. So much has happened in the past week and a half that he never bothered to wonder or ask. He has never met a faerie before, and never anticipated he ever would. He has taken what little he knows and what little Aria and Iri have revealed to him in stride. Now, though, with the pneumonia sitting heavy in his lungs, he does think to ask. He might not have another chance.

“Who did that to you?”

Her lips stiffen after he gives voice to the question. He can see the dip in her throat as she swallows against the tension now humming between them, and Hector has half a mind to apologize. To tell her not to answer, to keep her secrets for herself if it hurts too much. But she surprises him when she turns to face him, her eyes astonishingly gentle.

“A group of Englishmen, so blinded by their loyalty to their church that they forgot its teachings.”

“Clergymen?”

She nods. The jacket in her hands, still bloody and now soaked through, is forgotten for a moment. “When the English came, they brought their god with them, but the people of our homeland were still attached to the old ways. Still _ are. _ The church condemned their belief in the Free Folk; said we were demons, creatures from hell that the devil put on Earth to tempt them from the light of god. Many yet revere us as spirits of the Earth, though, and kept to the old beliefs and traditions. Years ago the church finally put its foot down and sought to make examples of however many of us they could capture.”

When Hector had been a child, he had once seen a group of older village boys who had managed to catch a beautiful, blue butterfly. They had been stupid and cruel children born to equally stupid and cruel parents, and Hector had watched in horror as they took turns ripping the creature’s wings from it’s body. He had wept, had screamed at them to stop. They beat him into the dirt, and before they left they scattered the butterfly’s wings over the shaking and frightened heap of him on the ground. His gift was still so new to him in those days, and he knew that even if he had managed to magick the life back into the poor thing, he could do nothing to reattach its wings. He could not bring himself to drag it back into this newly mutilated, flightless life.

There are tears burning misty and wet in the wells of his eyes. His hands tremble below the water’s surface as a slow wash of cold, indignant rage breaks under his skin. “So they…”

“Our wings are a great source of our power. Without them, we live a half-life. Somewhere in a type of limbo between mortal and Fae.” There is a waiver in her voice has _ never _ heard before. “Our magic is not as potent. We walk the world in nearly mortal bodies. We cannot fly.”

“And Aria,” he whispers. “She has those scars as well?”

“Please do not bring it up to her. She was—_ is— _very young. Far too young to ever have lived through something so horrible.”

_ I can comprehend it. Please believe that I can. _

“Iri, I am _ sorry_.”

“Hector, stop.” She shuffles close to him, reaching out to take his face in her hands. She tilts his head to look at the twin holes at the side of his throat. “It had nothing to do with you. Your pity is appreciated, but unhelpful and unwanted. Please do not dwell on it.”

The water is freezing against his feverish skin. He hisses as it floods the wound, trickling down past his collar and seeping into his clothes. Iri carefully wipes away the crust of dried blood that rings the punctures. The flesh feels bruised underneath her fingers. Hector shudders, the reminder of how close he’d come to being exsanguinated nearly too much to process all at once.

They clean themselves as best they can. When it is clear that the water of the stream has little else to offer in the way of removing blood stains, Iri pulls her sopping jacket from the current and wrings it out. The water skin is collected and capped. She helps Hector to his feet and together they begin the walk back to the wagon.

“There you are,” Aria greets them, surrounded by her pouches and her instruments. Hector recognizes a mortar and pestle, a small pair of clippers, but there are many components he has never seen before. He sits at one of the wagon’s benches as she mixes a thick, green paste that smells of pungent herbs. “Pull your hair back, please.” He does so, having forgotten it had been torn loose in the struggle with Miron. Aria gently smears the salve over the bite mark. “The bleeding has stopped. That is good to see. Vampires typically have an anticoagulant in their saliva to discourage the blood from clotting.”

The thought makes Hector feel slightly sick to his stomach. He does not want to dwell on how much blood he has shed at Miron’s hands _ or _ his teeth.

She wraps his throat with a length of clean, white bandage. With a brief warning from Iri, the wagon lurches forward and Aria scrambles to put away her tools before they roll into disarray. Hector’s eyelids suddenly feel like a leaden weight, struggling against the buttery curtain of morning sunlight. His own weight is heavy, far too heavy to support, and he slouches where he sits.

“Here.”

Aria unfurls her bedroll to spread over the length of the wagon’s bed. She stretches her hand out to help him and Hector gratefully takes it to slide from his seat and into the pallet below. He wraps himself in his cloak, curling close into his body. Aria settles in beside him and he welcomes the cool touch of her hand over his brow, gentle and smelling faintly of healing herbs. The fever has returned with a vengeance, no doubt spurred on by the cold water, and he slowly begins to slip back under its hold.

Hector can feel himself fading as the wagon creaks and rocks beneath him. Aria’s warmth beside him lulls him deep to sleep, and just before he drifts away he thinks he can hear a voice quietly singing amidst the hushed sounds of the woods around them. He wonders which sister it is, and just as he realizes it is both of them the deep pull of slumber drags him under.

* * *

It is nearly dusk by the time they reach Budapest. He has managed to sleep through much of the trip though when he wakes he hardly feels rested. The adrenaline from the night before is long gone, and in its wake it leaves behind aches and pains he had, up until that point, been able to ignore. He feels stiff and decrepit as he is helped to the ground for Iri to stable their wagon and horse.

The inn they have chosen is fairly nice. Its common room is warmly lit by a roaring fire and furnished with attractive, well-made furniture. There are a few other patrons occupying the space but not many. They populate the tables and chairs surrounding them, a few sitting at the bar where Iri has gone to speak to the innkeeper. The woman is middle-aged, her frizzy, greying hair barely contained by her cap.

“I have one room available,” she tells her. “Though there is only the one bed.” She looks discerningly at Hector behind her, Aria’s hand held firmly in his own. “He your husband?” she asks Iri shrewdly.

“Our brother.” Iri’s voice is polite, if clipped. The woman gives her long-suffering look. “Different fathers.”

_ “Right.” _ She takes Iri’s coin and hands her a set of keys in return. “Dinner is served until eleven. Any drink you want must be ordered at the bar.”

“Thank you.”

The staircase that leads to their room nearly does him in. Both sisters have to help him up each and every step and by the time they reach the top he feels ready to faint dead away. Their room is thankfully at the end of the hallway, the farthest possible from any noise that wafts up from the tavern below. It is surprisingly comfortable: there is a wide feather bed against the wall, a chest of drawers, a somewhat threadbare rug, and a pair of slightly worn armchairs before the fireplace. A copper wash tub sits in the corner.

Hector sits gingerly on the bed. He is suddenly curious as to where they acquired the money for such a fine room, but he isn’t sure he is ready to know.

“I will go round to the nearby apothecaries to see what I can procure in the way of medicine.” Aria does not even wait to remove her cloak before she is again at the door. “He needs a bath, a _ hot _ one. The more steam the better. I will order hot water and a meal to be brought up on my way out.”

Iri hands her the coin purse. She gives her sister a brief embrace. “Hurry back. It will be dark soon.”

With that, Aria is gone. Iri sets about lighting a fire at the hearth, and Hector simply sits as the world moves around him. The sickness sits heavy behind his eyes, an ever-present ache humming hungrily under his skin. It threatens to eat him alive, from the inside out. He does not even realize he has lain down, that he has fallen asleep until Iri rouses him awake.

“Hector,” she whispers to him, “there is a bath ready for you. I can have your clothes laundered if you like.”

His answer comes in the form of a thundering cough and his sleeve comes away from his mouth dotted with _ more _ blood. He stands on shaky legs, tongue recoiling at the taste of iron. The room is warmer now, the fire roaring comfortably at the grate, and yet still he shivers. Iri averts her eyes long enough for him to undress and sink himself into the scalding water. It is hot, nearly too hot, and he can feel the strength draining from limbs as he begins to soak.

Iri leaves him his linen shirt and the soft breeches he wears under his trousers. The rest is taken to laundry. Hector lets the fear-ridden sweat and dust from the road melt from his skin. Days of sleeping in fever-soaked clothes had left him yearning for the upright showers of Dracula’s castle. He nearly scoffs. At one point in time, he had committed himself in being well-groomed. It was less a point of pride and more a compulsion to be presentable and _ clean_. He had been methodical in his own hygiene, from the length of his hair, the way he wore his clothes, to oils he used to nourish his skin. Now he is thankful enough for the crude chunk of lye soap the inn has provided.

It is more taxing than he ever imagined to wash himself. The act of scrubbing the soap over his skin is enough to make his arms shake, his limbs refusing to cooperate long enough to get himself clean. It is pathetic. He feels impotent, helpless as he struggles to lather his body. When it comes to his hair, he hasn’t even the strength to lift his arms high enough. Hector cries out weakly, a half-sob that is echoed by a frustrated splash of water. He drops his soap to the floor.

“Would you like help, Hector?”

No, he wouldn’t, he thinks darkly. He would like to be able to bathe himself. To walk without aid. To breathe without drowning in his own lungs. But he does not say that to her. He gasps a weary, drained “Yes,” and she comes to him without another word.

Iri kneels beside the copper tub. Her hands cup in the water, lifting to gently pour it over his skull. The water trickles through his hair until it is soaked through, and he watches as she takes the soap from where it had been dropped to work it into a rich lather between her palms. He is so sick, so miserable, that he cannot even bring himself to feel embarrassed that she has to help him _ wash his own hair. _

There is a darkness slowly closing in on him. It hangs foreboding in the air like storm clouds overhead. His shuts his eyes against it.

The first pass of her fingers through his tangled hair is gentle. Almost unbearably so. Iri gently works the soap through the disheveled curls, carefully detangling any snags she finds along the way. It feels _ heavenly. _ Tears spring unbidden behind his closed eyes, boiling and potent, leaving glistening trails of salt over his flushed face. Iri must see them, but she says nothing. She simply continues her ministrations, humming idly as she works. The canorous sound of her voice reminds him of the singing that had carried him to sleep on the road. It has a similar effect now, calming the unease thrumming in his breast.

“Why are you doing this?”

Her fingers still for a moment as he poses the question to her. They return to their task as she answers. “You needed help.”

“I mean all of this.” He wets his dry, cracked lips. “Why are you helping me? Either of you? I don’t understand why you did not just… _ leave _ me there to die in that castle.”

“If you want to know, I was originally of the mind that we _ should _ leave you there. Does that make you feel better?”

“I…” He is caught off guard by the admission. “... No.”

“So why ask?”

Hector coughs again, suddenly. The force of it staggers him, knocks the words from his mouth before he can answer. More blood dribbles from between his lips. Drops of it fall into the water, leaving behind plumed trails of swirling red tendrils. Iri waits, patiently silent, for the fit to subside and for him to calm.

“They were humans, weren’t they?” He struggles for breath between the words, hand perched over his heaving chest. “The ones who took your wings. Why take pity on another one? One that you don’t even know?”

“Because I do not resent the whole of humanity for the actions of a few cruel and misguided ones.”

“How?”

Iri’s hands cradle his head. She gently tilts his head into the water. “Lean back so I can rinse.”

He does so, reluctantly. It irks him that she might be brushing off his questions, genuine and desperate as they are. He wants to know. While he can still draw breath he _ has _ to know. She gently runs her fingers through his lathered hair, shaking loose the suds so they can dissolve into the water. She is careful to keep it from his ears and his closed eyes. It is a tenderness and intimacy he has not been afforded in… He cannot even remember. Probably not since he’d been an infant.

“It was an English bishop and four of his curates who captured us. They ambushed us as we were fleeing the court: me, my sister, and my father. They snared us with iron, shackled us in it so we couldn’t use our magics and escape, and took us to their church. The bishop cut my father’s throat and bled him dry at the altar.” Iri helps him to sit back against the wall of the tub. Hector stares into the fire as he listens, lost in the glowing flames as he drinks in her words. “I held Aria as close as I could so she couldn’t see.”

He does not want to hear this, he realizes. Hector swallows down the bitter vitriol sitting high in his throat. He does not want to hear about whatever monstrous thing had been done to Aria or her sister. Not when he has been little but a burden on them.

“They took my wings first. It took all five of them to hold me down, and I highly doubt any of them was a surgeon. They cut me for _ hours_. When it was Aria’s turn they had at least been able to get in a bit of _ practice. _Her scars are a little smaller, neater than mine. When they were done, they did to us what power hungry and self-righteous men do to helpless young girls, and when the last of them finally climbed off of me I split his skull open with the manacles on my wrists. I didn’t stop until they were all dead, as dead as my father on their alter, and then I carried Aria outside, dragged my father’s corpse with me and I burned their church to the ground.”

Hector feels sick. The blood has drained from his face, his breathing loud in the wake of her words. His hair now rinsed clean, Iri folds her elbows over the lip of the tub. Her chin comes to rest over the top of his head.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks her in a thin, hushed voice.

“Because as I knelt there, bleeding on the church steps while it sat in flames behind me with my sister nearly dead in my arms, a man found me. A shepherd. He had seen the fire and come to see if anyone was hurt. And he found us. Carried us to his home. His family gave us the only beds they had; his wife and daughters tended to our wounds, while he and his son sat up with my father’s corpse. When my mother found us, she came to barter for our lives and the shepherd told her to take her wains and her husband and go _ home. _ He could have been ex-communicated by the church, tried as a witch for helping us and he wouldn’t even take my mother’s payment for any of it.”

“And so, what then? You forgive all the injustice done to you and your family, all for the actions of one shepherd?”

“Do not purposely misunderstand me, Hector,” she snaps at him. “I have forgiven _ no one _ for what was done to me and mine. I _ never will. _But I at least understand I cannot forsake every mortal I meet for the crimes of only a few. Especially not when I am alive today thanks to one man and his family.”

She takes a heavy breath. Hector grasps at the rim of the tub. He grits his teeth with the effort it takes to turn himself in the water so he can face her. Her strange, wide eyes gaze deeply into his and he suddenly feels very young. Like a child staring into the vast realization that he is very small, and the world is so much bigger than he’d ever imagined.

“My sister refused to leave you in that castle because in _ you _ she sees _ herself.” _

Hector blinks at her. Iri tilts her head thoughtfully.

“Aria has lost much to what has been done to her. You do not see it because she masks it so well, but I have been here the whole time. She fell into a despair so deep I never thought I would get her back. She was not able to save herself, but she can save you. And if that is just as good for her then… I will not deny her the chance.”

Hector shakes his head slowly. “I do not deserve it. I deserve _ nothing _ from either of you.”

“You did not deserve Carmilla.” His head lifts at that, and he has never seen such a tender, heartfelt expression on Iri’s face. “You did not deserve Carmilla or her men, and you did not deserve Dracula. There is good in you, Hector. Aria could see it when she found you in the dark. I see it now in front of me.”

“No.” There is a sudden, blaring panic cresting in his ears. Hector bites down on a cry. “I killed my parents,” he blurts out. The fire in the hearth is suddenly blindingly bright. “They… they wanted to sell me, to send me away. I… I set fire to their house. I burned them alive, and as they screamed for me to help them, I ran. I ran and I didn’t look back.”

She looks saddened. “Why are you telling me this, Hector?”

“Because there has to be a _ reason!” _ He chokes. His fingers clench against the copper sides of the tub. “There has to be a reason all of this has happened. If there isn’t… I _ can’t —” _

“Stop.” Iri’s hand finds one of his, wet and slippery and trembling. “Hector, I will not sit here and condemn the actions of a frightened and abused child. Neither should you.” He clutches at her, tries to quell the quick, frenzied breaths that rock his lungs. “The reason this happened is because you were taken advantage of. It is not your fault, and you are the last person to blame for it.”

They sit in powerful silence for a long, long time. Iri’s hand never leaves his as he fights to ease the storm raging behind his heart. There is so much he wants to say, so many things he does not have the words for, not when he is ill and dying and trying not to shatter into countless pieces amongst his bathwater. Iri waits for him. She does not judge him for it; she does not rush him. When the world is finally quiet again, she stands to hand him a fire-warmed towel.

“Best get out before the bathwater turns icy.” She offers him a smile. “Aria will be cross with me if she learns you’ve grown more ill on account of my carelessness.”

He takes the towel from her, and when she turns her back he hauls himself from the tub, water sloshing about his calves as he dries himself. Hector dresses quickly, or as quickly as he can manage, eager to find solace in the middle of the feather bed.

He falls into a deep, dark sleep. Iri wakes him when their meal is delivered and tries to coax him into eating something. There is no appetite left in his body, and the few bites he takes are hard fought. They sit heavily in his stomach. When he refuses the rest of his plate, Iri convinces him to take some water instead. She rouses him every half hour or so after to try and get him to drink.

He thinks he wakes when Aria returns, but he is too exhausted and fever-addled to keep his eyes open. He can hear bits and pieces of their conversation as he dozes.

“... ate hardly anything.”

“Did he drink?”

“A little.”

There is the rustling of her canvas satchel followed by the tinny clinking of her tools over a tabletop.

“Anything in the way of medicine?”

“Some herbs… can mix them in wine, see if he will drink.”

“What did the healer say?”

“... told me to bring him in the morning for leeches.”

“... is probably best we are leaving, then.”

He feels the touch of cool, clean hands on his face. They feel incredible over his heated skin. Hector moans softly at the loss of them when they’re pulled away.

“... _ burning, _ Iridessa. What if he…”

“... that’s nonsense. Do not even entertain it.”

Aria bids him to sit up. She hands him a cup, asks him to drink the whole thing. He tries. The wine is decent, the flavor only slightly altered by the addition of her herbs. By the time he manages to finish it he feels light-headed and even drowsier than he was before.

Hector settles back into the bed and before long he feels the two of them nestle in either side of him. He can feel the strong, firm line of Iri’s spine at his back, the bony edge of Aria’s shoulder near his own. Their scattered conversation is nearly impossible for him to follow as he dozes. He suspects it is in part because they filter in and out of the strange, flowing cadence of their native tongue. It lulls him finally into true slumber, and as he slips back to that black haven of sleep he thinks he can hear Iri humming again, comforting and sweet at his back.

When morning breaks, he is bundled into his warm outer clothes, now freshly cleaned and slightly floral smelling. He can feel them moving about the room, packing things away in preparation for their departure, and when Aria takes his hand he follows her as deliberately as his weak legs allow him. The stairs are, luckily, not as much of a trial going down as they were on the way up.

The sun is barely in the sky when they leave the city. Aria and Iri help him into the wagon’s bed, which has been newly lined with several thick quilts that smell fresh from the line. He does not ask where they came from. Hector stares at the shrinking city behind them as Budapest grows further and further away, till it is merely a dot on the blinding horizon. More of the herb-wine concoction is forced on him. He drinks it down without complaint before he curls himself into the nest of blankets.

The road is blessedly quiet around them. The only ambient noise that reaches his ears is the chirping of birds, the wind rustling through the trees with their tender new buds. Aria lowers herself in beside him to lend him her body warmth.

Her voice breaks the quiet around them like a spell.

_ “Of, all the money that e’er I spent,” _ she sings, _ “I spent it in good company. And of all the harm that e’er I’ve done, alas it was to none but me.” _

Iri’s clear voice follows in turn to take up the next lyric.

_ “And all I’ve done, for want of wit, to my memory now I can’t recall.” _

The next part they sing together in perfect harmony.

_ “So fill to me a parting glass. Good night, and joy be with you all.” _

Hector closes his eyes to the lilting melody. It is a balm to the unease at war in his breast. Not a cure, far from it, but a comfort nonetheless. He bids farewell to the nightmare of Carmilla’s castle, whether he lives to see Wallachia or not, in the wings of faerie song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure many of you will be glad to know, Alucard appears in the next chapter! We'll finally get to him and what he's been up to this whole time.
> 
> Please leave me a comment, I LOVE reading them! Happy holidays to you all! Stay safe and be merry!


	9. Part IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was fun to write. Perhaps a little late on the holiday spirit, but who's complaining? I tried really hard to capture the dynamic between the trio, and I found it really refreshing. It also felt very comfortable writing for a depressed character because, well... you know ;)
> 
> Also, if anyone has any suggestions for a beta reader or where I could go about finding one it would be much appreciated. I'm getting real tired of reading back through my chapters and seeing the dumb shit that got past me.
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

He should have asked Sypha and Belmont to stay.

His father’s castle is filled with ghosts.

There are no phantoms floating through its corridors, no poltergeists rattling furniture. No malevolent spirits seeking to avenge the death of their master. The manifestations he sees are nothing supernatural in nature. Merely the heartsick longings of a lost boy for the family he once had.

Visions of his mother and father haunt Alucard through the halls. He sees his mother whiling away in her laboratories. She is in the sunlight that streams in through the windowpanes. Her laughter follows him from room to room. His head turns every time he hears it, and his heart breaks anew every time he sees there is no one there. He keeps having to remind himself that she died over a year ago, and he had slept that year away in a coffin beneath an unsuspecting city. There had been no time to process for him, no space to grieve for her in the wake of his father’s rage. Now that Dracula’s ashes are cold, now that the castle is empty, now that he is more alone than he has ever been all his life, he has nothing but time and space both. And they are suffocating him.

The memories of his father are not so simply dealt with. At times he sees the man who raised him; the husband who always offered his mother his arm, the teacher that gifted him all the knowledge in the world, the father that had kissed him goodnight to chase the nightmares away. And there is the madman he’d met the eve of his mother’s murder. He had gone to his father’s side for solace, for _ comfort_. He had been faced with the monster he’d always heard about in stories, but had never yet been forced to meet. Vlad Dracula Tepes had lain furious eyes on his only son and looked _ through _ him. It had hurt him so deeply he thought he’d never recover. Alucard can postulate as to what he had seen: an obstacle, and enemy. A traitor to his mother’s memory. And then the man that had wiped away his tears as a child had reached out to tear the very heart from his chest.

He feels robbed. Robbed of his mother’s memory, for he would never be able to separate the loss of her from the chaos Dracula had unleashed upon the world. He felt robbed of the father that should have been there to grieve with him. Robbed of the chance to say goodbye to either of them.

He sees himself in the portrait of his mother that hangs in Dracula’s study. He sees his father’s face when he looks in the mirror. He remembers the last time the three of them had been in the same room; he had been traveling through western Europe, had been in Paris for nearly three months when his father had contacted him and asked when he would next return to Wallachia. His mother had missed him. And so he’d wrapped up his affairs in the city, packed his belongings and rushed home to the castle. His mother had known nothing about it. When she’d seen her son, Lisa Tepes had thrown her arms around his neck and _ wept. _He had promised her then he would always come back to her when she called for him.

He hates himself for not being there when it had mattered the most.

Alucard sleeps so much during those first few weeks. After he sees Sypha and Belmont off, after he says goodbye to the only two people he has left in all the world, Adrian Tepes sits in his father’s reading chair and _ sobs_. Silent, quaking sobs that bleed the will from his body, and when he can shed no more tears he drags himself to the nearest bed he can find and sleeps for three days and three nights. He awakens in the early hours of morning feeling as though Sypha had managed to summon the castle directly down on his head while he’d been unconscious. His feet lead him down the stairs into the wine cellar and before he realizes what he is doing he is pulling bottles from the racks indiscriminately, not even bothering to read the labels.

If it had worked for Belmont all these years, then perhaps it would work for him.

He does not think he manages to get himself drunk. Not in the way he had been hoping to, at least. His body simply filters the poison of the alcohol from his blood too quickly and all he manages to accomplish by the bottom of the third bottle is a criminal waste of extremely fine wine. It must have some sort of effect on him because for a moment, as he stares at the emptied green bottles littering the kitchen floor, he entertains the thought that his father will be less than pleased with him_. _ And then he remembers that he had staked his father with the splintered post of his childhood bed a scant few days ago, and the wine suddenly goes sour in his mouth.

He hurls the bottles against the kitchen wall. Relishes the sound they make as they shatter, glass shards skittering over the floor ringing like bells. They crunch wetly under his bare feet.

_ Damn his fucking pride, _ he thinks as he crawls back into his appropriated bed. _ He should have asked them to stay. _

When he next wakes, it is to a monstrous, incessant pounding inside his head. The ache rattles around in his skull, reverberating in the chambers of his sinuses and up behind his eyes. It hums along the line of his gums, up into his teeth, into his fangs. His jaw clenches and unclenches involuntarily.

It is _ thirst. _

It is then that it occurs to him he has not fed since well before Gresit, before he’d hidden himself away in his year-long slumber. Before his father had tried to bisect him with his bare hands.

Lisa Tepes had taken measures to ensure her family was cared for. Vlad Dracula had fed exclusively from his wife for as long as Alucard could remember. As he swings wide the door to his mother’s second laboratory, it occurs to him that what he is looking for might no longer be there. The castle had been full to the brim with his father’s followers, his generals and vassals plucked from vampire aristocracy across the globe, for the better part of a year. Alucard remembers the hollowed, depleted look to his father’s face. It had been obvious to him then that Dracula had not fed since his wife had been burned at the stake.

The insulated door to the cold storage opens with a barely audible hiss, icy fog pouring out from within. Inside lie phials upon phials of expertly preserved blood. His mother’s blood. They sit neatly upon elevated shelves in organized rows. Alucard reaches for one. The glass fogs with the heat of his fingertips, water condensing against the cold to bead upon the bottle. One should be enough. Enough at least to calm the storm raging through his nerves so that he might slip back into lethargy.

He drinks it in one go so the taste has no time to linger in his mouth. It does not work. Instantly, warmth pools like fire in the pit of his stomach. Alucard staggers at the sensation. A year’s worth of grief swirls at his lips with the familiar flavor of his mother’s blood. It burns down the length of his throat, hot and visceral and crippling. He drops the phial. It shatters against the stone floors.

His mother is a once all about the room. He can see her hovering over her experiments, scribbling notes into her journal, taking stock of her supplies. She smiles gently at him as she passes him by. Like he was simply a visitor in her realm here, her world made of glass and books. He misses her in that moment, so painfully that it takes his breath away. Tears spill over his face like rivers. He flees from the laboratory, from the ghost of his mother that yet haunts his waking hours.

Alucard’s feet wander the castle halls indiscriminately. He does not care where they lead him. He simply needs to _ move. _ The world outside is quiet amidst the hush of night. It rushes past him through glass window panes. Everything reaches a fever pitch in the middle of a hallway he does not immediately recognize, and he leans against the wall in an attempt to pull himself back together.

There is a sound from the other side of the door just a few feet away.

Alucard stills. He waits, eyes trained on the door until he hears it again: a soft, timid whimpering, not unlike that of an animal. His hand reaches for the burnished brass of the door handle and it slowly creaks open on hinges that have not seen much use in recent days. On the other side, a great, glowing blue eye stares up at him.

His first thoughts upon seeing the little creature are those of pity. Part of the flesh has peeled away from its tiny skull, the eye socket empty, and one of its forelegs is entirely degloved down to the bone. Alucard has half a mind to put the poor thing out of its misery, until it offers up that whimper again. The small pug dog tilts its head as it stares up at him. Alucard blinks at it. His eyes wander the room inside and when they fall on the stone forging table in the middle, the pieces fall into place. This had been a devil forge, belonging to one of his father’s generals. The dog must be one of his, held together by powerful necromancy.

Who in the world would use such skilled and potent death magic on something so insignificant as a _ dog? _

The little black pug trots up to the table. It hops up on its hind legs to paw at the base of the forge’s worktable. It’s lone, bulging blue eye beckons to Alucard again as it lets out another pitiable whine, scratching claws longingly against the stone.

“Was this your master’s forge, then?”

The dog offers little in the way of an answer. Alucard takes stock of the state of the room. It was left largely undamaged by the chaos the night of the blood moon. He’d seen no trace of any forgemaster in the wake of the battle: he had neither crossed blades with one during the fighting, nor had he found any human corpses among the dead. It is entirely likely they’d managed to escape during the struggle. Alucard sighs quietly. Another mess he would eventually have to deal with.

He turns to leave. The gentle _ tip-tap _ of little nails scrapes against the floor behind him.

“Coming along, are you?”

The dog’s reply comes in the form of a short, well-mannered bark.

“I suppose then, if you must.”

He ponders the likelihood that he’ll have to feed an undead and reanimated dog and, staring at the white bone of an exposed eye socket, decides that it will probably not be an issue.

His new companion follows him all the way back to his bed. Now that the unrest has mostly left him, the thirst that had originally woken him now firmly at bay, Alucard is _ tired. _ The dog hops up beside him as he lies down. It walks itself in a circle once, twice, three times before deeming the spot comfortable enough to curl up in. An unnaturally blue eye stares at Alucard, every bit as sad and lonely as he feels. A soft ache settles in the depths of his chest as he realizes he is going to have to name the little thing.

“Sirius,” he mutters, halfway into his pillow. “I shall call you Sirius.”

The name is hardly creative, but Sirius doesn’t seem to mind. The dog simply closes its eye, and Alucard does the same.

Weeks pass as he sleeps. Winter takes full hold of Wallachia while he slumbers, the snows laying claim to the land in a blanket of hushed white. Frigid winds whip about the high towers of the castle, and even as he dreams Alucard can hear it. A part of his brain remains awake in this comatose state, ready to rouse him at the first sign of an intruder or a possible threat.

Which is why he jolts awake at the insistent pounding against the castle’s main door.

He hurtles to his feet, startling the dog, Sirius, where he lies next to Alucard’s head. His new companion gives a short, worried grunt as he rushes to dress, to get his boots on his feet and throw on his overcoat. The castle is deathly cold in the clutches of winter, though he hardly notices as he flies down corridors and stairways to the great hall. The banging at the door echoes against the gleaming floors, growing ever louder as he gets closer.

He does not know what to expect at the other side, but it is not the sight of a pink-cheeked Speaker flanked by a shivering, sour-faced Belmont.

“There you are!”

Alucard stares, wide-eyed and totally caught off guard, as Sypha Belnades throws her arms around him. Her hair is damp with melted snow as she pulls him close for a hug. The warmth of her stuns him into stillness.

“About time.” Belmont shoulders his way past them, chivalrous as ever, to step into the castle. “Took you a bloody age to answer the door.”

Alucard, uncharacteristically, says nothing in response. He looks down at the top of Sypha’s head, bewildered. “What are the two of you doing here?” he asks. Not the most elegant way to greet the only two people he could claim in the way of friends, but Sypha does not seem to take offense. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” she replies, grinning at him. The smile falters when he does not immediately return it. “Alucard, have you not been getting our ravens?”

His lack of response is answer enough.

“For god’s sake, get inside and close the damn door,” Belmont grouses at them. His arms are crossed over his chest, shoulders hunched against the cold. “You’re letting all the wind in Wallachia through.”

Alucard ushers Sypha into the great hall, pulling the door shut behind her. The interior of the castle is frigid, though not as frigid as the frozen wilderness outside. In the past, his father had heated the castle for his mother’s comfort. As Sypha’s small, chilly hand curls around his own he resigns himself to repairing the climate control system when he gets the chance.

“We sent a handful of ravens with messages that we were wanting to pay you a visit. I wasn’t really expecting a response, since we never stayed in one place very long. You mean to tell me you never received a single one of them?”

“I… have been asleep.”

“What, the whole time?” Belmont asks incredulously.

“For the most part.” Alucard glares impassively at him.

“Alucard,” Sypha says, “do you not know what day it is?”

He shakes his head dumbly as it begins to sink in that he really has no idea as to the date. Winter, clearly. December, perhaps? Maybe January?

“Alucard, tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”

He blinks at her, astonished. Two aspects of the situation shock him: one, that he had nearly let the holiday pass him by with nary a thought to acknowledge it, and two, that Sypha and Trevor had traveled all the way back to the castle to spend it with him. He truly does not know what to say to her; he is equal parts grateful they had thought of him and also ashamed he had not even been awake to properly welcome them back.

Sypha squeezes his hand in hers. She offers him a knowing look. “Let’s find something warm to drink. Is there a kitchen in this drafty old place?”

The shattered bottles still lie in ruins on the kitchen floor. Alucard glares at them, ashamed, as Sypha putters about to make them tea. Belmont eyes the mess knowingly from where they sit at the table. His eyes flicker between them and Alucard’s face. Alucard makes a point to ignore it.

“Well, Alucard.” Trevor leans back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. “You look fucking _ awful.” _

Alucard stares at him, attempting to bore holes into his skull with his eyes. “Mindful as ever, Belmont,” he says icily. “Nothing ever gets past you, does it?”

“Well, keen hunter’s eye and all that.” He tilts his head towards Alucard, face suddenly thoughtful. “Really, though. How have you been?”

“I have been asleep, as I mentioned earlier.”

“Lot of good all that beauty sleep has done you, then. Your eyes look as though they’ve been blackened, and I’ve never seen you so, erm…” He gives Alucard a once over, lips pursed as he searches for the word. No doubt he takes in his pillow-flattened hair, sallow face, and wrinkled clothes. “Disheveled.”

“Yes, well,” Alucard rests his chin apathetically in his hand. “I suppose murdering my father and squatting here in his grave hasn’t really inspired me to keep up with my appearance. My apologies. I shall remember to press my shirt the next time you decide to invite yourself into my home.”

“Ah, there he is.” Belmont smirks at him. “There’s the prickly little dhampir princeling. Was wondering where he’d gone off to.”

_ “Fuck _ you.”

“Tea!”

Sypha approaches them, kettle held firmly in one hand with three clean mugs dangling in the other. A cup is placed in front of Alucard and another one in front of Trevor. Sypha pours them their tea. Trevor loads his with sugar and milk. Alucard drops a single sugar cube into his own.

“Good to see you two still get on like a house on fire.” She takes a long, satisfied sip of her steaming drink. She hums appreciatively. “Sorry for just barging in like this, Alucard. I never dreamed you wouldn’t get our letters.”

“There’s no need to apologize. It is my own fault.” With her overcoat shed, he can see the three jagged scars his father had left on her upper arm. They have healed over nicely, despite the cauterization she’d used to close them in the battle. Something sad and heavy wells heavily behind his heart. Guilt, he thinks. He takes another drink of his tea, golden eyes falling to the table. “You may both stay as long as you like. You will always be welcome here.”

“Thank you.” She places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I thought it would be nice if the three of us could spend Christmas together. I’ve never celebrated it before! I was always a little bit jealous of how much fun everyone else seemed to have with it.”

“Whatever you like, Sypha.” He could deny her nothing. If she asked for him to string garlands from every rafter in the castle and sing carols all through the night he would do it. He wagers Belmont feels much the same.

He lifts his head at the patter of four small feet trotting along the kitchen floor. Sypha and Belmont both look towards the source of the sound. Sypha’s eyes go round as dinner plates, sparkling in the light from the crackling hearth.

“You have a puppy!” she exclaims, hopping up from her chair. She rushes over to see the dog, her hands clasped together in joy. “Oh, hello, you precious—_ er.” _

Sirius gazes up at her with his lone blue eye. Sypha’s face contorts in a combination of shock and barely contained aversion at the exposed bone peeking out from beneath the dog’s black fur. Sirius’s pink tongue falls out of his mouth as he pants enthusiastically, greeting her with a happy bark. His curled tail begins to wag.

“He has been reanimated,” Alucard reassures her. “A forgemaster’s pet, I believe. He doesn’t seem bothered by his deformities, at least.”

“He’s… cute.” She cautiously holds out her hand. Sirius sniffs at her fingers. He gives her an approving lick. Sypha giggles, charmed by the grotesque little creature.

Trevor scoffs from his seat. “That’s one word for it. You’re sure it’s a good idea, keeping a pet that used to belong to your father’s forgemaster?”

“He is a _ pug, _Trevor.” The dog trots over to paw at the legs of Alucard’s chair. He lifts Sirius into his lap, scratching behind his one good ear. “The worst he could be capable of is a nasty nip. Perhaps a few holes in the lawn.”

“My mother once knew a noblewoman who kept pugs. Little shits used to chew through furniture like termites.”

“What is his name?” Sypha asks him.

Alucard hesitates before he answers, suddenly self-conscious and a little embarrassed. “I’ve been calling him Sirius.”

Belmont barely manages to stifle a snicker into his knuckles. “You named your little black dog _ Sirius? _How very original, Alucard.”

“It’s _ fitting, _is it not?”

“It’s a good name!” Spyha insists on his behalf. She crooks her fingers to scratch under Sirius’s chin. He holds out one skeletal paw to her, yipping cheerfully. Alucard can see Trevor’s lips curl into a queasy grimace.

_ “Christ, _that’s unsettling.”

“Well.” Sypha stands up, her hands settling on her hips. “I, for one, am starving. Would you eat if I made something?” she asks Alucard.

He cannot even remember the last meal he ate. Being half human, he does need to eat, though he can go far longer without food than Trevor or Sypha. At the mention of a potential meal, his stomach suddenly feels wasted and empty. “I will help you in a moment,” he tells her. She makes to examine the kitchen’s food stores. Alucard runs his fingers through Sirius’s short, black fur.

“Do you have you to have him up like that at the table?”

He says nothing in response to Trevor’s jab. Instead he suddenly scoots his chair closer, thrusting Sirius towards him as though he were going to drop him in Belmont’s lap. Trevor Belmont, scion of the Belmont clan, heir to a hunter dynasty hundreds of years in the making, startles as the pug in Alucard’s hands gets too close for his liking. He jumps out of his chair, knocking it over in the process. Alucard smirks, thoroughly pleased with himself.

“Fuck you,” Trevor growls at him. He turns on his heel and makes to leave the kitchen. “Fucking git. I’m going to find us a bottle of wine.”

Alucard chuckles to himself as he sets Sirius back on the floor, making to wash his hands and help Sypha prepare their meal.

_ Oh, how he has missed them._

* * *

On Christmas Eve, Trevor goes out into the woods with an ax and chops down what has to be the scrawniest, ugliest fir tree to be had. He drags the damn thing in through the great hall, up the stairs, and into the parlor, leaving a wide trail of pine needles in his wake. Alucard watches as he stands it up near the window, his lip curled at the needles now littering the centuries-old carpet under their feet.

“My word,” he mutters, “you have somehow happened to find the most unsightly tree in all of Wallachia. Your considerable lack of taste is astounding.”

“This forest is mostly made up of black locust and tall pine. This was the only fir I saw. If _ you _ feel like volunteering an hour or three freezing your balls off looking for a better one, be my fucking guest.”

“It is a shitty tree, Belmont.”

Sypha strides in behind him, her eyes lit up like a string of fairy lights. “Oh, but it’s _ our _ shitty tree,” she breathes. She reaches out to touch the sparse, prickly limbs. It is a squat, asymmetrical thing. “We’ll have to decorate it. I’ve always wanted to decorate a Christmas tree.”

“Though I doubt all the ornamentation in the world could improve its appearance,” Alucard says, Trevor glaring at him all the while, “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

They spend the rest of morning crafting ornaments from colored paper. Sypha cuts garlands of little white doves to wrap around the tree. Trevor manages to get tree sap on everything he touches. He fashions several little bats of different colors. On one of them, a large white one, he pencils a frowning visage. It is accompanied by a prominent blond unibrow above a beady pair of yellow eyes. On the back he scrawls “Alucard smells of piss and onions.”

“Charming,” Alucard drawls distastefully as Trevor hangs it on their spectacularly shitty tree. He is trying to make them a star to place at the top by folding together gold-embellished paper in a very complicated pattern.

Sypha elbows him good-naturedly. “If it’s any consolation, _ I _don’t think you smell of piss and onions.”

“Thank you for the reassurance.”

After the tree is sufficiently adorned they retire to the kitchen, newly cleaned and free of broken glass. Sypha attempts to decipher her way through his mother’s _ cozonac _ recipe, despite explaining several times that she has never baked anything before in her life. Alucard attempts to help her through it while Trevor watches them from the table, mug of apple cider firmly in hand. It takes them the better part of an hour to hunt down and gather the ingredients together. He and Sypha make an incredible mess trying to knead it all into a cohesive dough and plaiting it proves to be a Herculean task in itself. It is left to prove for an hour and when they come back to it, Sypha lets out a distressed groan when it does not seem to have risen at all. Trevor cranes his neck over their shoulders to see.

“Your yeast is dead,” he announces to them and Sypha rounds on him, her finger pointed squarely in his face.

“And how do _ you _ know?” she demands, her lips pursed indignantly. “Did you glean that for yourself while you sat there and drank your _ cider, _Trevor?”

“He’s right,” Alucard tells her exasperatedly. “The yeast is dead.”

He has to stop Sypha from throwing the dough out of the kitchen window.

They bake the cursed thing anyway. It is dense and chewy, not anything like the _ cozonac _ of his childhood, but the flavor is nice all the same.

The three of them pass that evening curled up on the sofa in front of a roaring fire, admiring their horrid tree in the glow of candlelight. Sirius snores soundly, curled up in Alucard’s lap. Sypha falls asleep with her head on Trevor’s shoulder and her feet tucked under Alucard’s leg, and Trevor himself follows her soon after. Alucard looks at them both and thinks to himself that he is immensely thankful they chose to come back to spend the holiday here with him.

Christmas morning dawns grey and freezing over them, the wind howling beyond the castle walls. Sypha bounds to their tree, kneeling to gather the gifts underneath in her arms. She pushes a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine into Alucard’s hands. There is a matching one for Trevor. Inside is a beautiful, hand-knitted woolen scarf. Alucard’s is red, embroidered with elegant gold filigree. Trevor’s is the same, but blue.

“My great-aunt helped me to knit them,” she explains. “She did most of the delicate detail work, but I did the bulk of it on my own.”

“It’s a wonderful gift, Sypha.” Alucard offers her a grateful smile.

“Warm too.” Trevor wraps his proudly around his neck. Sypha grins cheerfully at them both.

Alucard gifts Sypha with a very fine moleskin journal. “So you may write a few stories of your own,” he tells her. She flips eagerly through the blank pages and thanks him with a kiss to his cheek. For Trevor he had decided upon an antique hunting knife still in good enough shape to be used.

“This is a fine blade,” Belmont appraises, eyeing the steel in the light. He nods appreciatively to Alucard, and he supposes that is thanks enough.

For Sypha, Trevor has carved a beautiful wooden bird. It is small enough to fit readily enough in a pocket. He mutters something about his mother believing them to be good luck charms for the road. He can barely manage to get the words out before Sypha squeezes him into a formidable hug.

Trevor hands Alucard a bottle of whiskey. Alucard blinks. “Did you just hand me a bottle from my father’s collection?”

“Yes, and I’ll wager you didn’t even know it was there,” Trevor grouses. “That is a very fine whiskey. You should give it a try.”

“... Thank you, Belmont.”

He does give it a try, later that evening after dinner. They have a venison roast accompanied by seasonal root vegetables. Despite his aversion to the dog, Trevor, much to Alucard’s annoyance, throws Sirius bits from his plate at the table. The whiskey is, in fact, very good. He shares a glass with Trevor. Sypha takes one sip and decides, very adamantly, that she does not care for it. If her face goes red and she sputters to swallow it down, neither of them make any comment on it.

It is a far better Christmas than he could have hoped for. Considering his only other alternative had been to sleep through it alone in the castle, Alucard does not think he could ever convey to Sypha or Trevor just how grateful he is for them.

Suddenly, the castle no longer feels as if it is home to nothing but ghosts.

They say goodbye to him the very next day. His heart is heavy to see them leave, but he bids them farewell with a content smile on his face.

_ “Please _take my ravens,” Sypha begs of him. “Read our letters. We worry about you, you know. Trevor won’t admit to it, but he does.”

Belmont rolls his eyes behind her.

“I’ll read them,” Alucard assures her. She pulls him close for a tight, lingering hug.

“You had better.”

Trevor pats at his arm, good-naturedly if a little awkward. “Right, Alucard. Uh… see you around, I suppose.”

“I doubt it. I don’t believe I’ll be leaving the castle for some time yet.”

“Jesus. It’s an expression.”

_ “Goodbye, _Belmont.” Alucard takes his hand. Gives it a firm shake. “Take care.”

Trevor nods. “You too. You miserable bastard.”

The scene of them riding off into the horizon, Sypha’s hand waving to him as she fades into the distance, is achingly familiar. The airy warmth that fills his chest is new. Alucard walks himself back into the castle, eyeing the damaged pillars and chipped flooring. Sirius trots over to sit expectantly at his feet.

He thinks of the decimated walls in the upper reaches of the castle. The engine that Sypha had all but melted hidden in its depths. The ruins of the Belmont family estate just outside.

“Well,” he breathes, looking down at Sirius. The dog blinks owlishly back. “It looks as though we have our work cut out for us, haven’t we?”

Sirius yips in agreement.

It will take time to rebuild. Luckily he has an abundance of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading please leave a comment!!!!!! I love reading them!
> 
> And a reminder, let me know of any beta readers who might be willing to help me out or where I can find them!


	10. Part X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has commented so far! I every single one and it makes my day.
> 
> And a big thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

It does not take long for the first stranger to come knocking at his door.

With the threat of Dracula’s hordes gone from the land, word traveled fast in Wallachia these days. The castle is difficult to miss, even in the center of the woods surrounding the Belmont estate. One can see the towers over the treetops from miles away. With the snows finally beginning to melt and the earth thawing underneath, residents of the nearby village were growing more curious about the looming castle on the horizon and the strange young man said to be its master.

Alucard spends the months after bidding Sypha and Trevor farewell rebuilding the interior of the castle. The damage done to it during the final confrontation with his father was substantial. There was rubble to be cleared away, whole walls that would have to be rebuilt, portions of internal structures that needed repairing. He starts with sweeping away the mountains of debris that litter the corridors. Then he tries his hand with mortar and brick. He has to refer to his father’s structural blueprints to reverse the damage done to the vast, intricate pipe system of the boiler room, but he manages it in the end.

It takes him weeks, even with the help of the castle’s legion of automatons. He’d hardly ever seen them as he’d grown up, as they had been designed to keep out of sight, but they took to their newly assigned tasks readily enough. In time the castle starts to look less like a blood-soaked battleground and more like the place in which he had grown up. Repairing the engine that moved the damn thing, however, would require much more looking into. 

Alucard pours through his father’s journals. There were those still loyal to him and his war lurking in the shadows across the globe, and should they cross his path he would be ready. Unfortunately, Dracula’s writings were as addled and misguided as his purge of the human race. Alucard hardly recognizes his father in the words. The anger, the pain, the unrestrained _ rage _ was chilling. This was not the man he’d known as a boy. This was the monster everyone had always accused Dracula of being.

Sirius follows him everywhere he goes. Trotting diligently at his heels, the little dog is simply content to be nearby, panting happily as he watches Alucard work. There is a charm to him; he is friendly enough, always eager to be pet and held. And, while Alucard would hardly call the dog a good listener, it is strangely nice to have someone to talk to, even if his audience would rather have him throw a stick to chase after.

In the evenings, he takes to his study to read. Occasionally he indulges in a glass of spirits: brandy, usually, Cognac when the day has been particularly long. His father’s collection is extensive. Far too much for one man to drink his way through, but Alucard has time. If he has anything these days, he has time.

He tries to keep his distance from the Belmont estate if he can help it. Perhaps someday he will see to rebuilding the manse; it was the least he could do to repay Trevor for the wealth of knowledge below. For now, the knowledge that its shelves are adorned with the bones of his kind is simply too much. The disgust always roils fitfully in the pit of his stomach when he gets too close. The tiny, fanged skull behind the glass of a hunter’s trophy case haunts him.

The solitude is both comforting and stifling. It provides him with the space he so desperately needed, adequate quiet in which he may begin to sort through the ocean of grief inside of him. Once the castle is, for the most part, in working order, he uses the workshops deep in the belly of the castle to fashion his mother a headstone. It is simple; he is not a mason, and his mother was never one for needless opulence. Alucard finds a clearing in the woods, one with ample sunshine and beautiful, tall trees to surround it, and places the headstone in the ground there. She never cared for poetry, so he kept the inscription relatively concise.

_ Dr. Lisa Tepes. Mother. Wife. Healer. _

He wishes, tears in his eyes, that he’d at least had a handful of her ashes to bury. No doubt they had been left in the remnants of the pyre where she’d burned, for the wind to scatter as it saw fit. It was not what she deserved, but if Alucard were to spend anymore time lamenting the cruelty of his mother’s fate he would go just as mad as his father.

He wrestles with himself as to whether or not he should make one for his father. In a moment of morbid and gruesome humor he thinks of doing it and putting it in the Belmont family plot. The irony of it all: the entirety of the Belmont dynasty sharing their resting place with their mortal enemy. He comes very close to doing it just so Trevor’s ancestors can spend the rest of eternity turning in their graves. Ultimately, Alucard puts the idea on hold. He boards over the door to his childhood room, where his father had died. He takes his wedding ring and locks it in the desk drawer of his study. Perhaps there would be a day where he could face his father’s memory without feeling like he was being torn in two on the inside, but it was not now.

The weeks pass, and he grows more and more accustomed to being alone. He has his books, his dog, and his work. It is all he needs for now.

So when the first timid knock sounded at the castle door, he almost does not answer.

It had been mid-morning. The snow had almost melted completely away, some patches of it still stubbornly frozen to the ground. He supposed that to be the reason it had taken so long for someone to pay the great, hulking castle in the middle of the Belmonts’ woods a visit.

Alucard had been in the midst of cataloging the equipment in one of the castle’s many, many laboratories when he heard it. None of Sypha’s letters had indicated they planned to visit anytime soon. It was possible they had come to see him without any warning, and that is ultimately what helps him to decide upon answering. What if something had happened to them on the road? What if they needed his help? What if one or, god forbid, _ both _ of them had been injured?

He dashed down the stairs, his shirtsleeves still rolled up over his elbows and his hair tied back to keep it out of his face. Sirius pranced after him in a hapless attempt to keep up but Alucard left him in the proverbial dust. His heart thrummed in his chest as he hauled the great doors open, the air rushing in cold and brisk against his skin.

It was neither Sypha nor Trevor that awaited him on the other side. Against the grey and brown landscape of early spring in Wallachia stood two men, one barely out of adolescence and the other well into his middle-age. They wore peasants’ clothes, and their boots were splattered in nearly-frozen mud. They gaped at him when they lay eyes on his face, and he stared pointedly back.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“W-we…” the boy stuttered, his gaze falling to Alucard’s eyeteeth. The older man placed his arm out in front of him, stepping forward.

“My name is Grigore. This is my son, Petar. We live outside the neighboring village.”

“And what on Earth would compel you towards this place, Grigore and Petar?”

“Are you Lisa Tepes’s son?” Grigore’s expression was one of desperation. His eyes are pinched underneath greying, furrowed brows. “Are you Adrian?”

_ “Why?” _

The word came out much more harshly than he had intended. The sound of his mother’s name from another’s mouth, a _ human’s _ mouth, set the hair at the back of his neck to rise, even more than that of his own name. The boy, Petar, stepped back from him, his face gone noticeably pale.

“My wife and I used to live in Lupu. We knew her, your mother. She was a godsend to us when Sonia’s father fell ill.”

He knew the name Sonia. He remembered calling upon a Sonia with his mother, to care for a sick and dying old man. He had often visited patients with her in those days, when he had been small and far too curious for his own sake, and insisted that he tag along with her. Mostly he had balked at the idea of being left behind, but Lisa had been happy to take him, to show him the importance of her work.

“It’s my grandmother, sir,” the boy, Petar, piped up. “She can’t hardly get out of bed. She has terrible fever, says her joints ache so bad it turns her stomach.”

“Petar, please.” Grigore gave him a cautionary glance and he closed his mouth guiltily, as though he’d said too much. “We don’t have much in the way of money,” the old man told Alucard, “but we can pay you. God willing, our crops will come in this autumn, and… you may have whatever percentage of them you like.” His gaze dropped to Alucard’s mouth, where his fangs hid deceptively behind his lips.

Lisa Tepes had trained her son in medicine. She had _ insisted _ he learn her trade, no doubt hoping in her heart of hearts that he would take up the profession when she no longer could. He was capable, if inexperienced, and he had been an excellent pupil. There was no way either of these two could know that for sure, and yet he supposed they must have come to him as a last resort, hoping he had learned medicine at his mother’s side.

“How far to your farm?”

“About two hours’ walk,” Grigore answered. “The road is mostly clear of snow these days.”

Alucard sighed. “One moment, please. Allow me to fetch my coat.”

He closed the door, pinching the bridge of his nose as he made his way back up the stairs.

He gathered his coat, as well as a satchel full of things he pulls from his mother’s stores: a few herbs, some bottled tonics, a book of human anatomy, and a few diagnostic instruments. He took his sword as a precaution, tucked it into the loop at his belt. The two farmers were still shivering outside the castle when he returned. Alucard eyed them coldly.

“If you mean to deceive me in any way,” he told them, “I will inform you both it will not work out in your favor, and you will _ not _ live to regret it.”

Grigore shook his head. “We won’t be deceivin’ you, sir,” he assured him. “Thank you. Thank you.”

He followed them down the road and, as promised, they arrive to a cottage overlooking a few brown, barren fields within roughly two hours. Alucard was not as susceptible to the cold as a human might be, but by the end of their journey he was adequately chilled and his boots were caked in mud.

“Come inside,” Grigore insisted, holding the door open for him. The interior of the house was small, but warmed by a fire roaring in the kitchen hearth. He recognized the face of the woman sitting at the table. Her eyes were lined with crow’s feet and her black hair streaked through with grey, but he knew her to be Sonia all the same. He remembered how soft her hands had been as she’d offered him a pastry while he waited for his mother to see to her patient.

“Adrian,” she breathed incredulously. Her eyes were wide as they stared at him. She looked as though she had seen a ghost. “My word.”

“Good afternoon,” he said, awkwardly. His patience had been wearing thin on the walk over, but seeing her face, both relieved that he had deigned to leave his castle for them and anxious to see him in her kitchen, eased the flare of his temper.

“Would you like something to drink?” She made to stand, her chair scraping against the floor. “Tea? We might have some mulled wine—”

“No, thank you.” He adjusted the satchel over his shoulder, eager to do what he could and then be on his way. “Your mother is unwell?”

“Yes.” She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Back in here.”

Alucard was led into a small bedroom. He recognized the old woman lying underneath blankets so thick they seemed to swallow her up. She was small and frail against the pillow, her wrinkled face awash in a sheen of feverish sweat.

“Mama.” Sonia said quietly. She sat at the woman’s bedside and reached for her hand. “Lisa’s boy is here. You remember?”

“Ah, little Adrian.” The voice was reedy. She looked at him with foggy eyes. “My, how you’ve grown! You look so like your mother.”

Alucard swallowed down the hard tension growing in his throat. “Mariana, is it?”

“You remember.” She smiled weakly at him. “Sweet boy.”

Sonia stood so he could take her seat. He placed the satchel on the floor, rifled through it for a moment before pulling out his mother’s stethoscope.

Alucard performed a thorough examination: he took her temperature, listened to her heart and breathing, measured her pulse. He’d had his suspicions when the boy had mentioned joint pain, and one look at the woman’s gnarled, swollen hands confirms them.

“Rheumatism,” he muttered to Sonia.

“What’s that?”

“Her body is attacking her joints. It causes pain and swelling, often deteriorating the cartilage and bones. Occasionally it can make a person ill. Left undealt with and it will go after organs next.”

Fear flashed bright across her face. “Can anything be done? Will she live?”

“I can provide you with an anti-inflammatory tonic. A dose once a day should be enough to keep the pain at bay and prevent any further extensive damage.” He procured a bottle from his bag, holding it out to her in the palm of his hand. “I can show you how to recreate it. It’s done easily enough with plants and compounds you should be able to procure from any local apothecary.”

“Truly?” Sonia blinked at him in awe.

“I shall live then?”

Mariana chuckled from where she lay in bed. Alucard tried his best for a reassuring smile, bending to touch her shoulder.

“Provided you take your medicine,” he said good-naturedly, “yes; you shall live.”

He instructed Sonia on how to prepare the tonic. Left her a neatly written list of the ingredients, as well as what to do with them should she forget. As he put on his coat to make the trek back, she stopped him with a touch to his elbow. In her hand she held a familiar apple pastry and a bag of coins.

“No,” he told her. “Keep your coin. I have no need of it.”

“Take this then, at least.” She put the pastry in his hand. Her next words were spoken very softly, weighted with sadness. “We were heartbroken when we heard what happened to Lisa. She was no witch, and I shall go to my death declaring it so. I don’t care what the church said. Us who knew her, us who she healed: we remember.”

He was astonished. It is the first kind word he had heard spoken of his mother since her death. Since his father had gone mad. “Thank you,” is all he can manage in reply, the overwhelming emotion flooding his chest making it nearly impossible to say anything else.

“No, Master Tepes, thank_ you_.”

He could see Grigore and Petar out in the field as he left, ploughing it for the upcoming planting. They wave in farewell to him; he hesitantly waved back.

And that is how he comes to be known by the local folk as Adrian Tepes, doctor Lisa Tepes’s son and prodigy.

He spends one day each week in the neighboring village, making calls to those who beg his assistance with his satchel over his shoulder and his sword at his hip. They are wary of him at first; he does not doubt some of them also know Dracula to be his father. His teeth alone are more than enough to give away his heritage. However anxious his fangs and sword make them, the results of his efforts seem to do all the convincing necessary.

In time, they grow to trust him, like so many people undoubtedly trusted his mother. Occasionally they balk at his courses of treatment, no doubt still accustomed to the chicken’s blood and kitchen herbs of the so called healers of the past. However, it is hard to shun the effectiveness of science as it cures one’s children of their ills and sees them hale and healthy mere days later.

It is not the life he had imagined for himself as a boy. But it is fulfilling enough in itself, for the time being.

He has just seen to a young man with what appears to be a rather serious case of hay fever. With the weather growing warmer the plants have come to life around them, and half the village seems to be suffering from itchy eyes and runny noses. He provides those with the worst of it with a mild antihistamine, but there is little else he can offer them in the way of relief except to wait for the pollen to pass.

A blacksmith’s display catches his eye on his way out of town. A number of swords hang from the walls of the shop. Alucard stops on a whim; he is able to appreciate good craftsmanship whenever he happens upon it, and these swords are very well made. Far too well made for a blacksmith in a tiny village in the backwaters of Wallachia. A rather deadly looking shortsword draws his gaze. It is not unlike the one Trevor usually carries, if a bit more refined.

“See anything you like?”

The voice breaks him from his brief reprieve. He turns his head to find its source and is met with a very broad, very handsome man in a smith’s apron. He is at the shop’s forge, working something in the coals with a great pair of black tongs. The man smiles boldly at him. Alucard turns his head back to the display.

“Perhaps.”

There is the heavy clang of cast iron tools being set upon stone. The man is casually strolling towards him, wiping his sooty hands on an almost equally sooty apron. This close, Alucard can see the color of his eyes. They are an attractive hazel, complemented well by the chestnut of his hair. “Perhaps,” he parrots. “You seem rather fond of that one there. Shall I get it down for you?”

“No, thank you.”

The smith shrugs his shoulders at the decline. He makes as if to turn away, and Alucard clears his throat.

“These are all beautifully made.” His hands fall to rest casually at the pommel of his own blade. “Where were you apprenticed? I cannot imagine it was anywhere close by.”

“I served a master smith in Gresit. Came here little over a year ago; my sister married a local boy and told me the place was in need of a smith. It’s mostly horseshoes and farm tools, but…” His eyes wander back to the display of swords towards the shop’s door. “Occasionally the notion takes me. They don’t sell well, but I’m still rather proud.”

“You should be. I have yet to see quality like this outside of a large city.”

“Do you know Gresit, stranger?”

Alucard nonchalantly lifts one brow. “I have spent some time there.”

“Strange.” The smith tilts his head. “I can’t say we’ve met before. And I _ know _ I would remember someone like you.”

Something warm unfurls in Alucard’s chest. The sensation is mirrored low in the pit of his belly.

The man holds out his hand, roughly the size of a bear’s paw, to him. “I’m Artur.”

He eyes his outstretched fingers. The callouses on them, charmingly grimy with soot and ash. He takes the hand offered to him. “Alucard.” He gives a slow, measured shake. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Artur.”

“Would you like to see the inside of the shop, Alucard?” Artur offers. He bites at his lower lip, white teeth digging invitingly into the soft flesh. Alucard’s breath catches on a quiet inhale. “Might be aught in there to interest you.”

Alucard shamelessly rakes his eyes over Artur’s body. He is well built, muscled by years spent hard at work for the forge. While he himself is quite tall, Artur all but matches him in height. It is not something he is entirely used to.

His lips quirk into a small, coy smile. “I think there might be.”

Artur bends him over the shop counter as he fucks him. Alucard groans, arches his back against the hot, sweat-slick body bent low over him. They’d only managed to pull his trousers down over his hips, the waistband riding loosely at mid-thigh. His head falls back, hair spilling over his shoulders. His eyes flutter shut at the first proper thrust, sighs falling from his lips like petals.

He hasn’t fucked anyone since _ Paris. _ The time since had been filled with far too much pain, too much honor-bound duty to miss it, but since that chapter had come to a close, oh how he _ has _ grown to miss it. He had missed the heat, the touch of another person, the liminal space between anguish and bliss. As Artur grinds the fat, blunt head of his cock against his prostate, Alucard digs grooves into the wooden countertop with his nails.

One of Artur’s huge fucking hands grips tenderly underneath his jaw. Alucard’s body bounces against the counter with each thrust, his golden hair fluttering about his face with each hard-fought breath. He gasps as a thumb slides over one of his fangs and into his open mouth, fighting down the urge to _ bite. _

“Pretty teeth you’ve got there.” Artur’s words are punctuated with a long, drawn out drag of his hips that pulls the moan from Alucard’s throat kicking and screaming. “You ever use them?”

“Mm.” He swipes his tongue over the pad of Artur’s thumb. It earns him a bitten off hiss. “Would you like me to?”

_ “Fuck.” _

He pulls his fingers from Alucard’s lips. Sweeps his hair to one side so he can lave hot, open-mouthed kisses against his throat. His other hand curls around his cock and Alucard can feel the climax sitting low in his pelvis, coiled like a snake. He grits his teeth against it. He comes far too quickly for his liking but any reservations are thrown from his head in the wake of the pleasure that swallows him whole. His _ knees _ shake. His toes curl in his boots. Artur strokes him through it until it is all too much, and Alucard grabs at his wrist to pull him away. He brings the hand to his mouth to filthily lick his own spend from Artur’s fingers, making sure all the while he can feel the razor’s edge of his teeth.

“Jesus.” The smith’s thrusts lose any semblance of tempo they could have had before. Alucard smirks to himself and curls his fingers over the lip of the counter, bracing himself to hang on for the ride. It does not take long. With another brutal thrust, he can feel Arthur come inside of him, feel the pulse of him as he fucks shallowly through his climax. Lips at the base of his neck part on a drained whine.

Alucard rests his forehead against the countertop. He grins, satisfied, beneath the curtain of his hair.

They separate, and Alucard pulls his trousers back over his hips. He turns to face Artur as he buckles his belts back into place. The smith chuckles as their eyes meet, wiping at the sweat over his brow.

“I _ definitely _ would have remembered meeting you back in Gresit.” Alucard laughs.

“I dare say you would have.”

Artur suddenly leans in. It occurs to Alucard the moment before their lips have the chance to meet that he means to kiss him on the mouth. Panicking, he turns his head. Artur catches his cheekbone instead, and Alucard nervously makes to plant a fleeting kiss at the rounded bone of his shoulder. The seconds that follow are awkward, pregnant with unspoken rules that Artur would never have known to follow.

Alucard picks up his bag and turns to make for the door. He is filled with the anxious, buzzing need to leave before this has the chance to turn into something more than he can handle.

“Shall I see you again, then, Alucard?” Artur asks after him. Alucard gives him a considerate look.

“Perhaps you shall,” he says over his shoulder. “There may yet be a sword of yours I would be interested in.”

An amiable laugh follows him out the door.

A pleasant ache settles between his legs as he walks back to the castle. The misty, syrupy haze of sex settles languidly in his head, amplifying the gorgeous glow of sunset painting the woods a beautiful scene of twilight. It blankets Wallachia in cold, golden light. The castle’s towers grow ever closer as he walks, and he thinks idly of what the rest of his evening will entail. A hot bath, for one, with oil and salts. A glass of something enjoyed best by the fire, with a book to join it. Sirius will undoubtedly paw at his leg until he is lifted to settle in his lap.

All thoughts of a quiet evening alone are thrown out the window at the sight of a covered wagon sitting expectantly outside the castle. Alucard frowns as he grows closer. He has told the villagers time and time again to stay away from the castle, both for their own safety and for the sake of his privacy. Annoyance cuts through the pleasant humming in his blood.

“Who goes there?” he calls out to the wagon. His hand falls again to the pommel of his sword. “If you are from the village, I must ask that you _ refrain _ from approaching the castle.”

“We are not from the village.”

The accent that swathes the words is foreign in his ears. Lilting, and musical. Like a song. Alucard stops where he stands. Waits.

A girl jumps down from the wagon. She is slight, dressed in hooded traveler’s clothes. There is a gleaming, glass bow slung over her shoulder.

“Are you Lisa Tepes’s boy?” she asks. “You’re Alucard?”

“I am,” he answers, used to the question by now. “Who are you?”

The hood of her cloak falls back and his mouth falls slack as he finally gets a look at her face. The wild, red braid, the delicately tapered ears, the wide, odd eyes. She blinks owlishly at him.

To his amazement, Alucard _ recognizes _her.

“We need your help.” Her voice is strained. Whether it is from fatigue or unease, he cannot tell. Probably a blend of the two. “My friend is ill.”

He cannot keep track of how many times he has heard the same sentiment, or a variant of it, in recent weeks. This time, however, there is a powerful tremor shivering through the words. The rasp of a death rattle. The chill of it crawls over his skin like frost.

“It is springtime in Wallachia,” he says nonchalantly. “Everyone is ill.”

“Please.” She spits it out like it burns on the way up her throat. The desperation behind it is tangible. “We have traveled so far to get here. If you do not help him, he will die. Please.”

“Where is he?”

He is beckoned over to the back of the wagon. Inside is another girl, little more than a child, with pale hair and the same eyes as the other. She eyes him warily. Next to her, wrapped in blankets, lies a sleeping, wheezing man. Alucard can hear the fluid on his lungs from where he stands. His face is sallow, his lips dry and cracked in the cold air. They are beginning to turn blue.

“It is all right, Aria,” the older girl tells her. “Let him see.”

The younger one, Aria moves to a kneeling position. She does her best to lift the man next to her. He does not wake. “He has pneumonia,” she informs him. “I’ve done what I can, but… He needs medicine.”

“Can you help him?”

Alucard takes him from Aria. He sweeps one arm under his knees, the other supporting his back and shoulders. She reluctantly lets him go, her lips pressed tightly together as she scrambles from the wagon to follow him into the castle. “I will do what I can,” he tells them, “but I cannot promise you he will live.” It is not the weight of a full-grown man in his arms. He feels far too light, bones bird-brittle where he can feel them through his clothes. Fever rages hotly under his skin.

Another day, perhaps two, and this man would be dead. Alucard suspects the two girls know it as well as he does. The younger one follows him into the castle while the other makes to stable their horse. She seems wary to let him out of her sight, jogging to keep up as he navigates the stairs.

“Your name is Aria?” he asks her. She nods.

“Iri is my sister.” She sounds frantic. “What are you going to do? I’m trained as a healer. I can help you if you need it.”

“Your friend. What is he called?”

She hesitates. Alucard stops, perched on the stairs as he waits for her answer. Aria opens her mouth timidly, as though she is trying to consider what answer to give him. He does not care for the hesitation.

“Hector,” she says at last. “His name is Hector.”

Alucard’s heart stops. He looks down at the man in his arms, quite literally at death’s door. He knew that name, had read it in his father’s journals again and again. He couldn’t say what he had imagined either of Dracula’s devil forgemasters to look like, but it had hardly been this wasted husk of a man that fought for breath with the waning desperation of the dying.

Aria reaches for Hector’s hand, holds it tightly as she begs, pleads to him.

“Please help him, Alucard.” There are tears glimmering in the wells of her double-irised eyes when she looks up at him. “Please.”

Alucard sighs. He clenches his jaw.

_ God damn it all. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment I really appreciate them!!!!!!!!!!!


	11. Part XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: vague depiction of sexual assault and abuse in this chapter
> 
> Thank you guys so much for all the comments and the last part! It really is very helpful!!! And thank you again to moonstone-mama for beta reading!
> 
> I'm drawing a lot of inspiration for Faerie lore from Final Fantasy XIV.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please let me know what you think!!!!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

_ The hour is late, and he is supposed to be in bed. _

_ His bare feet pad quietly across the carpeted floor of the corridor. The castle always seemed more exciting at night, like it came awake with the light of the moon rather than that of the sun. Adrian’s mother and father were insistent when it came to bedtime, but on nights like this one it was simply more than he could bear to stay in his bed when there was still so much to see. _

_ He’d had a nightmare. That’s what he would tell his father when he was inevitably caught out of bed. It was not exactly a lie. There _ had _ been a nightmare. But he wasn’t a baby; it hadn’t scared him so badly he felt too frightened to remain in his room. An excuse to roam the castle looking for his parents was an excuse to roam the castle, however, and he would take advantage of it where he could. _

_ His mother was not at home. There had been a patient who needed her, a woman who was having a baby, and she’d left before she could kiss him goodnight. While he had been cross to see her leave it had faded from his memory when his father promised to read to him before he went to sleep. His father couldn’t do the voices quite like his mother could, but he did not mind. Father also did not make him comb his hair before he got into bed. _

_ Adrian had already checked the library, the kitchens, and the sitting room. There was still all the laboratories and the dungeons down below, but they would be locked and he was expressly forbidden from going anywhere near them. That left his father’s favorite study, high in one of the castle’s many towers. He is nearly at the top of the stairs when he hears voices. Initially he assumed his mother had returned from her house call, but as he grows closer he realizes the quiet, feminine voice he hears does not belong to Lisa Tepes. It is unfamiliar, and strangely accented. _

_ Adrian quietened his footsteps, slowed his breathing and his heartbeat so that he would be harder to detect. Just as he had been practicing. The study door was slightly ajar. Candle light and the glow from the fireplace trickled in from the thin gap between the door and the jamb. He strained his ears to listen, so curious he felt nearly giddy with it. _

_ “—apologize, but Dr. Tepes is not at home. She was summoned to a patient’s house very urgently earlier this evening.” _

_ “Will she be returning anytime soon?” _

_ Adrian’s eyes went wide at the sound of the woman’s voice. He was fascinated by the cadence of her words. It was almost like music. _

_ “I cannot say for certain. Sometime tomorrow morning, at the very latest.” His father paused for a moment. He could hear the gentle _ tap-tap-tap _ of his claws against the wood of his desk. “I will remind you that you have yet to answer my question.” _

_ Adrian risked a few more quiet steps to peer in through the crack in the door. He could see his father, as he had predicted, near his desk. There was a lady at the other side of the room, with her back to the fireplace. She was fairly small, especially compared to his father, and her wild red hair was tied at the back of her neck with a large, black bow. The tips of her ears ended in a fine point, and Adrian found them rather cute. She wore a simple blue cloak. _

_ “I come in search of medicine.” _

_ “And what medicine could a human woman have to offer the Fae?” _

_ He closed his hand over his mouth to hush the gasp that he nearly lets loose. The Fae? Was this woman a faerie? Adrian cranes his neck to see her better, searching to see if she had wings. Faeries were said to have beautiful, glittering wings, in almost every color of the rainbow. They could fly faster than a falcon and shrink down to fit into the palm of your hand. They could do _ magic_. _

_ His heart sinks in disappointment when he cannot find anything resembling wings at her back. _

_ “It is not for any one of the People,” the lady says to his father, “but for a mortal. A girl.” _

_ “And for what sort of ailment does your mortal girl require medicine?” _

_ “Of that I am not sure. She has… fits. At least once every week, sometimes more. She goes rigid, with violent convulsions, and when she wakes she cannot remember anything. Occasionally, she stops breathing.” She crossed her arms over her chest. There were freckles dotted over her arms similar to the ones on her face. “I would not see her suffer. Her family is very dear to ours. I have gold. Name your price and it shall be paid.” _

_ “My wife will not take your money, Captain. She did not come to study medicine for the sake of gold.” His father halted his words suddenly. The angle of his head tilted knowingly towards the door, and Adrian could tell he had been found out. “Adrian.” _

_ Caught, Adrian grimaced from his little hiding place in the shadows. He contritely shuffled into the room in his bare feet and night clothes. The door creaked in the following silence. His eyes dart from the floor to his father’s face in anticipation of the chiding he knew he would receive. _

_ “What have your mother and I told you about eavesdropping?” _

_ He guiltily mumbled something under his breath. _

_ “Louder, please. I cannot hear you.” _

_ “That it is impolite,” he repeated. _

_ “That it is. If I recall correctly,” his father said, looking toward the great grandfather clock in the corner, “you are supposed to be in bed at this hour.” _

_ “I had a bad dream.” _

_ At that his father’s face softened, the scolding expression giving way to one of concern. Adrian padded over to him, heart soaring as his father lifted him into his arms. He rested his head in the space between neck and shoulder, relishing the feeling of security and comfort found there. While his father’s arms were not as warm as his mother’s, he was much taller. Adrian felt invincible from this height. Protected. Safe. _

_ “I must apologize.” Vlad Dracula adjusted his son in his arms, turning back to face their guest. “I was unaware that we were being spied upon.” _

_ “That is quite all right.” _

_ Adrian watched as the woman took a step closer to them. She offered him a friendly smile, one that he bashfully returned before hiding it into his father’s shoulder. She was pretty. Not in the same graceful, gentle way as his mother, but more like a clover, or a butterfly. _

_ “Hello, Adrian.” She held her hand out to him. “My name is Iri. It is nice to meet you.” _

_ He shyly reached out and grasped at the tips of her fingers. They shook slowly. “Hello, Iri.” _

_ “Tell me; do you like flowers?” _

_ He nodded against the fabric of his father’s shirt. “I do.” _

_ “What kind of flower is your favorite?” _

_ He pondered for a moment, eyes landing upon the pretty color of her cloak. “Bluebells.” _

_ “That is a very good choice. I am quite fond of bluebells myself.” _

_ Adrian watched, enraptured, as she cupped her hands in front of her. There was a small chime, the soft hum of magic coming to life in the air, and he gasped as a flurry of ghostly lights gathered in her palms. They began to take shape as he looked and in seconds she was holding a beautiful stalk of bluebell blossoms out to him. The flower glowed softly in the dim light of the study, and Adrian’s mouth fell open as he took it, utterly amazed. _

_ “Place this beside your pillow, and you shall have no more nightmares. You have my word.” _

_ “Wow.” He held his flower up to his father’s face so that he could see it. “Look, father! It’s magic!” _

_ “That it is, my son. I see it.” His father gently strokes a clawed hand over his hair. “What should you say to Iri?” _

_ “Thank you,” Adrian murmurs faintly, his voice subdued with awe. _

_ “And now we shall see you to bed, for the _ second _ time this evening. Again, I apologize.” _

_ “I must ask you not to.” While her lips still smiled at them, her wide, vast eyes looked deeply sad. Adrian blinked at her, the need to take her hand again surprising him. “There has not been a child born to the Court in over a century. It was a pleasure meeting your son.” _

_ Adrian leaned his head back against his father’s shoulder. His eyes suddenly felt unbearably heavy. He held his flower to his nose as they slid shut, breathing in its sweet scent. _

_ “You are welcome to take a room here for the night, Captain. My wife will undoubtedly be glad to meet with you tomorrow.” _

_ “Please, there is no need for the title. I am no longer a member of the Queensguard.” She sounded hurt as she said it. “Iri will suffice.” _

_ “For what it is worth…” Adrian’s eyes opened at the sudden shift in his father’s tone. The casual, conversational quality turned heavy. Somber. “I was sorry to hear about your father. Oberon was a great man.” _

_ “Yes, he was. The best.” _

_ As Adrian’s father carried him through the castle and back to his bedroom, he twirled his flower in his fingers, admiring the light that emanated from it. The thought occurred to him, just before he drifted off to sleep in his father’s arms, that he had forgotten to ask where her wings were, and he desperately hoped she would still be in the castle when he woke. _

* * *

This man, Hector, is dying.

Alucard carries him to an unoccupied bedroom and deposits him atop the four poster. A fire is lit in the grate; the girl, Aria, tucks Hector away underneath the blankets. She holds the back of her hand to his mouth, feeling for the shallow, rapid rhythm of his breathing. Her face darkens at what she finds. The sound of Hector’s labored wheezing follows Alucard from the room.

Even looking past the infection that frothed in his lungs, Alucard would have said the odds were stacked against him. As he examines his new patient the list of concerns grows. High temperature, rapid respiratory rate, low blood pressure, and for the most part unresponsive. He is obviously malnourished; muscles have wasted away from the bones they cling to, leaving him thin and weak. There is almost no adipose tissue left to him. His skin is mapped in scars, wounds both recent and old, that his body simply has not had the resources to heal. Whatever ordeal he has lived through since he left the castle, it may very well be the end of him.

He mixes a solution of saline water, glucose, and one of his mother’s antibiotic cultures. Hector is dehydrated, and in dire need of fluids. The solution should help his body regain some of the nutrients it needs to mend itself, and the culture will help to fight off the infection. Whether or not it will save him, he is unsure.

“You mentioned the pneumonia; that much is obvious enough. Is there anything else about his condition worth mentioning?”

“We were cornered on the road, and he was attacked by a vampire,” Aria tells him. “I am not sure how much blood he lost, but I doubt he has recovered from it.”

It is a feat of nature in itself that this man is not yet dead. Blood loss on top of the lung infection; it is a wonder there is enough oxygen circulating through his body to keep him alive.

“What is that?”

She is staring at the sealed glass bottle that houses his solution. “Antibiotics,” he explains to her, “to help kill the infection. Mixed with water, sugar, and salt.”

“Is he to drink it?”

“No.”

Alucard hangs the bottle from the rack he wheeled in from his mother’s laboratory. He attaches a length of rubber tubing to a port at the bottom of the bottle. At the other end glints a short, stainless steel needle. He flicks his finger against the port to ensure the liquid is dripping downwards at a regular, steady pace.

“What is that for?”

“I am using it to administer the medication intravenously, directly into his bloodstream.” Alucard carefully pulls Hector’s arm from beneath the blankets. The veins beneath the skin are shrunken and frail. Were he not the son of Dracula, did not owe half his ancestry to creatures that sustained themselves on blood, it might have been difficult to find one.

“Will it hurt him?”

“No more than coughing his lungs to pieces, I expect.” He pinpoints a vein, thrumming weakly beneath the delicate flesh at the back of his hand. Alucard holds two fingers over it as he readies the needle. “Hold him in place, please. He may yet wake.”

Hector does not wake. The metal sinks cleanly into the skin with little resistance. He feels it when he punctures the vein, a meager trickle of blood flooding the tiny glass chamber behind the needle. Alucard hears a sickly, wet inhale. Hector’s brow draws tensely over his face but there is no other reaction. He is deathly still.

Alucard holds the length of tubing so that it falls straight, using gravity to feed the medicine down into the needle. When he can feel it flowing through the rubber he carefully releases it, using a length of clean, white bandage to secure the needle to Hector’s skin.

“How long since he fell ill?”

“A week, perhaps?” Aria answers. She brushes a lock of hair from Hector’s face, the gesture surprisingly tender. She gently tilts his head to the side and begins to unfasten the slightly soiled bandage wrapped around his throat. As it comes away Alucard can see the inside is pink with absorbed blood. At his throat, glaring at him through the candle light, is a savage set of fang marks. The vampire who had inflicted them had very clearly aimed for his victim to suffer. The two holes, crusted with dried blood, are surrounded by bruises that bloom over the skin like dark, grotesque flowers.

_ Like bluebells. _

“Excuse me,” he mutters, handing her the roll of white gauze. She takes it from him with timid hands and makes to rewrap the wounds anew.

The other sister is already awaiting him in his father’s study. Alucard stops in his tracks at the sight of her, _ exactly _ as he remembered from that night so many years ago. Her cloak is road-worn, brown instead of blue, and there is no bow tying her hair back. There are no glowing flowers in her hands. She fixes him with her wide, green eyes, the same as her sister’s back in the room with his father’s fucking _ devil forgemaster, _and Alucard suddenly feels very small and very, very lost. Like a young boy who has just woken from a nightmare.

“I know your face.”

The words leave his mouth before he thinks to say them. Iri casually arches her brow, crosses her arms over her chest. The fire crackles in the grate behind her, and he realizes she must have built it before he arrived. Like she had been waiting for him.

“I did not expect you would,” she says to him. “You have grown.”

“Eidetic memory.” Alucard crosses the room to sit in his father’s reading chair. “Forgive me; I would offer you something to drink, but first I would greatly appreciate an _ explanation.” _

“For?”

“First of all, what, exactly, you are doing in this country.”

She averts her eyes. They fall on a bookshelf against the wall, and Alucard watches closely as she peruses it. Her fingers trail over the spines of tomes nearly as old as the castle itself. “What makes you think we were not simply passing through?”

“Let’s not play games, Captain.” She stiffens at the use of the title. “There have been no faeries in this land for centuries. Why, now of all times, would two members of the Seelie Court decide to travel all the way to Wallachia?”

“Yes, what chain of events could have transpired in recent months to warrant interest? You cannot honestly think the rest of the world would sit idly by as Dracula laid waste to every mortal population on Earth.” The air in the room grows dark and vast. Alucard tastes old magic in the words. It sets the hairs at the back of his neck on end. “There are things in this world older and far more powerful than your father, Alucard.”

“Like your mother?” he scoffs, and the ferocity he is met with for it nearly startles him.

“Yes,” Iri snaps. She bares her teeth at him. “Like my mother.”

“Dracula’s war is at an end.” The words stick uncomfortably in his throat. “I saw to that myself.”

“If you believe the threat to humanity ended with your father, you are a fool.” Something flashes over her face. An emotion too fleeting to pin down; sadness, perhaps. Alucard can infer for himself where this part of the conversation is headed.

“Where did you find him?” he asks quietly.

“Austria. Styria.” Iri plucks a book from the shelf. She idly scans the cover. “Carmilla took him the night your father’s castle disappeared from Braila.”

He pieces the rest of the story together for himself. “She is building a horde.” He had recognized the colors the armored knights storming the castle had worn. Alucard knew Carmilla; had even met her once, at one of his father’s forums. She was tactical, cunning, and dangerously intelligent. And she knew how to read people well enough to slide herself under their skin before they could feel her claws.

“Well…” Iri puts the book back in its place. “She _ was _ building a horde. Not sure how well she is managing now without anyone to work her forge.”

“You took the trouble to relieve her of her forgemaster, yet you bring him here to me?” Alucard stares skeptically at her. “I know who he is. I know what he has done. By all rights I should _ kill _ him.”

“And yet you will not.”

A sudden, hot wave of rage swells beneath his breastbone. Alucard gouges his nails into the armrests of the chair. The wood creaks in warning beneath his fingers. How dare this woman, this _ pixie_, assume to know him so well? He, who put Dracula to the stake, who murdered his own father in cold blood? She knew nothing of the blood on his hands. Of the blood he would yet wade through to see his mother’s dying wish kept safe. “Won’t I?” he hisses at her, a snarl threatening to curl at his lips.

“I met your mother once.” Sorrow colors the words as she speaks. “She was an incredible woman. Kind. Gentle. I know what she would have done.” Iri tilts her head. “You look a great deal like her.”

It knocks the wind from him. The breath staggers in Alucard’s chest as the words sink in. They _ ache_. “Dracula’s hordes killed thousands of innocent people. Families slaughtered in their homes. Villages wiped off the map. Cities drowning in rivers of blood. Why should I keep him alive?”

“Your father _ lied _ to that boy, Alucard.” She points a finger indignantly at him. “He promised him mercy for the innocent, as misled and twisted as it sounds, and he _ used _ him. And if there is anyone who can rectify that, it is you.”

“And what did Carmilla promise him?”

“I cannot say. But you saw him. Do you think he willingly left this castle for that?” She pauses for a moment, her mouth poised to say words that catch on her tongue. “You have… _ no _ earthly idea what that man has been through. I have seen it firsthand. I implore you to believe me when I tell you he has paid for his sins. And he may yet pay for them with his life, even should you decide not to end it yourself.”

“Perhaps he was afraid to die?” Alucard suggests. “Perhaps he is a coward. Carmilla may have promised him an out once it was clear my father’s war was in vain, a chance to live in exchange for his services.”

“There are fates worse than death.” There is a morbid finality to that statement. Alucard can only postulate as to her meaning, but he thinks he understands well enough. “Hector knows that now, better than anyone should have to. Why do you think he agreed to come here, to this castle, knowing full well there was every chance you would kill him just as surely as you did his former master?”

Silence. Alucard cannot piece together a response.

“He _ loved _ your father. Carmilla knew it, and she used it against him. The boy trusts far too easily for his own good. Dracula saw that in him, _ she _ saw that in him, and they both took advantage. He has been paying the price ever since.”

There is a headache building behind his skull. Alucard drags a hand over his eyes, digs his fingertips into his temples to try and keep it at bay. He thinks of the faces of the villagers he has seen to over the past several weeks. Thinks of Sonia and her family, the apple pastry she shoved into his hand as he tried to leave her house. He thinks of his mother.

“... He may stay until he recovers.”

Iri sighs audibly. The relief that emanates from her reaches him from across the room.

“After that… I do not know. He will be safe here in the castle, as will both you and your sister. I shall have a room readied for you near his. Carmilla will not dare come near the castle if she knows what is good for her, and with an incomplete horde and the casualties sustained at Braila I doubt she would even consider it.”

“Thank you, Alucard.”

The words ring hollow in the chambers of his heart. He does not feel deserving of the sentiment.

“No.” He stands from his chair, turning on his heel to leave. “Do not fucking thank me.”

He has a patient to see to.

* * *

Hector survives the night. While he is far from out of the woods, Alucard has to admit it is more than he could have hoped for when he’d first carried him into the castle, blue-lipped and lifeless as he fought for each miserable breath. His solution seems to be working. Within hours, his skin appears to be less sallow, the veins beneath once again growing plump with life. Alucard takes his vitals every few hours; his temperature, pulse, respiratory rate. They are still far from normal, too rapid and frantic for a healthy person’s, but it is a slow improvement.

The girl, Aria, hardly leaves his side. Alucard has a room prepared for them with fresh linens and a warm fire, and while Iri lingers there, no doubt waiting for her sister to take the chance to rest, Aria stays. She _ fusses _ over Hector. Fetches blankets that he doesn’t need, arranges the pillows beneath his head to better suit his neck, and when the medicine bottle nears empty she is the first to alert Alucard. It is almost irritating.

“Would you show me how to do that?” she asks once, as he is changing the tubing to the port in Hector’s hand. “Please. I want to learn.”

He has half a mind to tell her no, to insist he does it himself, but then he remembers she managed to keep a starving, malnourished man alive through the onset of pneumonia in the cold Wallachian spring, and he is suddenly curious.

If anything, it will keep her out of his way.

He shows her how to take Hector’s vitals. He explains the method in which he records his pulse, feeling for the beat in his wrist as he measures the seconds on a timepiece. He shows her how to use his mother’s blood pressure cuff and what the numbers in the gauges mean, how it all correlates to the body. He teaches her how to replace the bottle on the rack, how to reattach the tubes, when to twist the port closed and when to reopen the flow. She takes to each task as though she were born to. He suspects that through her training she understood the science behind it all, but the methods and the tools he uses are foreign to her. To her credit, she is extraordinarily bright and learns quickly.

“How were you trained?” he asks her, as she helps him to mix another batch of his solution. The laboratory had stunned her into speechlessness, and quiet as they work makes him uneasy. “You mentioned you were a healer.”

“I was taught in Il Mheg. Our home.” He watches as she carefully measures the ratio of salts to distilled water, her hands steady yet cautious. “We learn magics, rather than medicine. Faeries are a delicate people; most of what we are taught is in the way of treating injuries. Flesh wounds, broken bones and the like. Not illness. I am afraid my knowledge of mortal diseases is… lacking.”

_ Faeries do not fall ill, _his mind supplies him. It is a flicker of memory at the back of his head, a fact gleaned from a large tome he’d found in his father’s library as a child. No doubt inspired by the impromptu visit of a flower-wielding former captain of the Queensguard.

“And why the fascination with human illness?” he asks her. She looks at him very thoughtfully for a moment. He might be imagining it, but he thinks a ghostly smile begins to tug at her mouth.

“I understand that stories and legends paint the darkest of our kind as… fickle, sometimes even cruel. But mortals are very dear to our people. They suffer greatly in their short lives. I would see that suffering end, or at least alleviated. And so if I learn medicine, learn how to cure and to heal, then… perhaps I can help to teach them.”

Alucard’s hands fall still. The glassware he holds in his fingers is gently lowered to the counter’s surface. The enormous gravity of the words, so _ achingly _ familiar, seems to swallow him where he stands. A sudden wave of grief overtakes him, so strong he nearly staggers.

“Ah,” is all he can manage in response.

He does not ask any more questions. They finish preparing their solution in silence.

Occasionally, Hector manages to claw his way into a semi-consciousness. Just long enough to cough blood all over himself, or stare frantically about the room in panic. Alucard highly doubts he is lucid in these moments. His eyes are always too bright, too clouded, the fever-fed pupils so large that they swallow up whatever color there is to be found. Once, they settle upon Alucard, and as Hector looks at him, he has no idea what it is he sees. Alucard waits with bated breath for his eyes to close again, for his breathing to settle out into sleep, and _ still _ does not know why his hands shake so. Hector may yet wake for good, very soon, and he has no idea how he will go about facing that tiger.

For now, all he can do is wait, administer his medicine, and stew in his own thoughts.

* * *

_ Her hands are so, so brutally cold. _

_ He squirms as they navigate his skin, her words wriggling in his ear like snakes, and he wants so badly to roll away, to run, to die. The gentle drag of her nails over his hip shocks him into stillness and it makes it so much worse. _

_ “Hector,” she simpers to him, “my sweet, dear Hector. Puppy.” _

_ She touches him and it tears a choked, ragged scream from him. He shuts his eyes for the illusion that if he cannot see her, cannot see what she is doing to him, then it is not happening. The tips of her claws whisper over the softest part of his belly and his heels dig into the stone as he struggles to keep still. To his horror, her hand leeches the heat from his body and begins to grow warm against his skin. _

_ “Please…” he whimpers as his flesh responds despite the tears in his eyes, despite the fear coursing through his veins like venom. “Please stop.” Shame settles like a cold boulder in the pit of his stomach. An icy, glass bottle shattering into a thousand pieces. _

_ “Are you going to behave now?” she asks, her teeth so terribly close to his ear. “No more of these little rebellious streaks? No more lashing out?” He cannot answer. Not with the dread rising at the back of his throat like a tidal wave. Not with the tears that threaten to drown him. Not with her hands stealing the life from him. _

_ It is worse than anything Miron has ever done to him. So much worse. Miron _ hurt _ him, made it easy to condemn everything to pain. Pain was easy. Pain he understood. But this is not pain. It does not hurt. And it is all the more terrible for it. _

_ The tension rises behind his navel, hot and uncomfortable, and Hector hates it. He hates his body. Hates the betrayal of it. Hates Carmilla for doing this to him. He wants to bite his tongue in half so that he bleeds to death before this can see itself to the end. Her other hand yanks the chain so the collar goes taut against his throat again and he yelps, panics, does not think he can bear being choked again. The chain tightens around his wrists and it hurts. _

_ “You’ll be good for me, won’t you?” _

_ Hector grits his teeth. His face, covered in snot and tears and sweat, crumples as he feels his lip tremble, his chest heaving against the mounting pressure between his ribs and in his abdomen. His mouth opens, teeth bared in a grimace, as the answer she so desperately wants squeaks itself past his lungs like a plea for mercy. _

“Yes.”

_ He can feel the smirk on her lips against his temple. _

_ “Good boy.” _

There is something around his throat.

Hector gulps in a deep, aching breath that rattles in his chest like dust. It stretches against his exhausted and enfeebled airway and he coughs, tries to swallow down the recoil in his lungs along with the stale taste of days-old blood.

There is something around his _ throat. _

Panicked, his hand flies to his neck. For a moment he imagines the collar, the chain, the cold bite of it into his flesh, and he closes his fingers around it and _ rips, _but what comes away is not steel. It is soft. Clean. Kind.

Hector opens his eyes.

Great swathes of crimson velvet drape weightily overhead, a canopy of finery. A fire quietly sputters towards the foot of a giant, four poster bed he comes to learn he is _ lying _ in. The room is dimly lit. Curtains are pulled back from the intricate glass panes of a window, and outside the moon rises full and gorgeous over spires and towers alike, a picture out of a book.

He realizes, with overwhelming despair, that he is alone.

He remembers falling asleep in the wagon, and after that it is mostly fragments. Glimpses of Aria’s face colored by fever as she’d woken him again and again, trying to pour more of her herb-laced wine down his throat. He’d taken what he could, but he had been so _ exhausted. _He remembers hearing Iri’s voice as she’d driven, insisting they would be there very soon, if he would just hang on. He had tried.

Neither of them are there with him. The room is empty, save for himself, and the knowledge is bitter, acrid like smoke as it sinks in. What has happened? Where had they gone? Did they leave him? Questions swarm like mosquitoes through his hazy mind, and before he has time to consider the alternatives he is pushing the heavy blankets down his body. He has to find them. He has to look.

Something pinches at the back of his hand. Hector tugs it instinctively into his body only to find that there is something embedded in his skin. A small glass phial, held into place by another length of bandages. He grasps at it, intent on ripping it out if he has to, when a voice startles him.

“Leave it.”

Hector jumps so violently it makes him dizzy. The shock to his body forces a cough from his lungs. The room spins as he looks about for the source of the voice, and when his eyes land upon it he goes deathly still.

It can only be one person. Staring at him from the doorway, golden eyes glaring at him down the length of a slim, chiseled nose, towers Dracula’s son. His arms are crossed over his chest as he considers Hector. His fangs glimmer in the moonlight as he opens his mouth to speak. Hector’s blood screams in his veins.

“I had expected you would die.” The words are said so casually, so nonchalantly, that his brain almost does not register what he is hearing. “To your credit, you did come very close.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

His voice sounds foreign in his own ears. Like the croak of a muted swan. It _ hurts _ to speak, and Alucard seems taken aback at the question. He blinks in the wake of it, golden eyes flashing curiously, like a hawk’s.

“Yes,” he drawls, “I have spent days slowly and painstakingly nursing you back from the brink of death just so I can kill you myself. It seems you’ve sussed out my plans. I shall have to reconsider.”

Hector does not understand. He feels suddenly faint, his heart hammering against his ribs like a rabbit’s. Alucard takes a step towards him and he cowers, retreats to the other side of the bed. He lifts his arms over his head, ready to deflect whatever blow might fall.

“I need to look at your throat.”

“Please don’t touch me,” he begs. His hands tremble as he says the words, hoping against hope that this man would listen. Alucard stares down at him in disbelief. If Hector didn’t know any better, he’d say he almost looked _ hurt_.

“You’ve ripped the bandage loose.”

He reaches for his throat to pull the gauze away. Hector cautiously brushes his fingers against the wound there, amazed to find it slightly healed over. The flesh is still tender, still a bit raw, but the marks are smaller.

“Where are—”

“Your faeries?” Alucard finishes for him. The words sound almost bored. “I doubt they have gone far. It is convenient that you have managed to awaken the second your vigil decides to finally leave your side.” He moves to fiddle with something hanging at his bedside, and Hector notices that the tube in his hand leads to a clear, glass bottle full of something liquid.

“What is that?” he asks, suddenly fearful. His lungs tighten in panic. “What have you done to me?”

“It is _ medicine,” _ is the exasperated answer. “Please calm yourself before you cough yourself back into a fugue state. I shall never hear the end of it should you fall unconscious again before either of your companions have a chance to see you.”

There is a shout from somewhere down the hallway. Voices ring out against the stone walls as loud as the footprints that accompany them, rapidly dashing towards his room. Hector nervously watches the open doorway, not sure what to expect at the other side. The tension melts from his body as Aria’s face appears. She looks exhausted. Exhausted, worn, and harrowed, but when her eyes find his she _ smiles. _ Hector can feel tears gathering in his eyes as relief floods his chest.

“You are _ awake.” _ She narrowly dodges Alucard as she rushes to his side. Her fingers reach for his and Hector clings to her with all the strength left to him. “I thought I heard voices down the hall and I didn’t know…”

Iri trails in behind her. She looks a little less frenzied, but no less weary. Her face softens when she sees him. Tears fall unbidden down his cheek.

“What happened?” he asks her.

“We made it to the castle.” She kneels at his bedside and rests her head over her arm, her eyes warm as they stare into his own. “Three days ago, now. You very nearly died, Hector. We almost lost you.”

“You will be all right,” Aria assures him. “Alucard has taken very good care of you. He saved you. You are _ safe _ now.”

He welcomes the embrace she envelopes him in. Her arms cradle him gently where he lies, and he returns the touch as fiercely as his tired body allows him. Iri closes in at his other side and Hector has to swallow down the sobs that bubble up into his mouth. He simply lets them hold him, content to bask in the fact that he is alive.

As Aria quietly murmurs to him, her own voice subdued by tears, he sees Alucard discretely slip from the room. It occurs to Hector that he should thank him, but as Iri and Aria, _ his _ faeries as Alucard had called them, welcome him back into the world of the living, it falls to the wayside.

He is alive. Despite everything, he is still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!! Please leave me some feedback!!


	12. Part XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: references to past sexual assault and abuse
> 
> Thank you all so much for the wonderful feedback on the last chapter! I really, really appreciate it. And as always, thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

His fever breaks just after dawn the following morning. Aria announces it gone with the back of her hand pressed to his forehead. She grins at him from her seat next to him on the mattress. Hector feels drained in the aftermath. An exhausted buzz still sings through his blood, his skin, his muscles and bones. It inspires an intermittent shiver in him, one that comes and goes as it pleases yet lingers along the pathways of his nerves.

“Would you like something to eat?” she asks him. “Anything to drink? I will fetch it for you.”

His insides churn suddenly at the idea of food. It is as if his stomach, shrunken in on itself after days of nothing, has entirely forgotten its purpose. He is certain that were he to eat something that very moment, he would have little luck in keeping down. A thought occurs to Hector, as he thinks to ask for water.

“Is there tea?”

He has not had tea in so long. He used to drink it in the mornings, would pour himself a cup in the kitchens before breakfast alongside Isaac as the other forgemaster brewed his coffee. That had been before that disastrous night in Braila. Before Carmilla.

“No tea.”

Hector’s eyes dart towards the door. Alucard looms there, his fingers pulling at the wrist of a black glove, fitting it over his hand. Anxiety swells tumultuously in the pit of his empty stomach. He watches, nervously, as Alucard approaches his bedside.

“I have spent nearly two days restoring sorely needed fluids to your body.” He rests his hands over a device that hangs around his neck. It gleams in the morning light that streams in through the windows, silvery metal and black rubber. A stethoscope, as he’d heard Aria call it. “I’ll not see you flush them all away with a diuretic like caffeine. There is apple juice in the ice chest, Aria. That will suffice for now.”

Aria gives him an apologetic wince. She squeezes his fingers reassuringly. “Perhaps another day.” Hector’s wide, nervous eyes follow her as she leaves the room. Iri, as though she can sense his unease, moves to lounge herself over the foot of the bed. She rests her chin in her palm.

Alucard puts the two arms of the stethoscope into his ears. He reaches towards Hector’s chest with the circular end of it. Hector can feel the cold of it through his thin linen shirt.

“Breathe, please,” Alucard asks of him, “as deeply as you can.”

He takes as deep a breath as he can muster. It grates against his airway as he inhales, and he chases the exhale with a wet, painful cough. The metal presses against his back, and this time he manages not to sputter. Alucard’s face gives nothing away as to whether or not what he hears is good or bad. He pulls the device away from around his neck to drape it over his shoulders. He moves to slide his fingers under Hector’s ears, and Hector flinches reflexively. He wrenches himself away, reaching up to protectively cover his throat. Alucard steps back, hands raised in a hesitant show of deference. He sighs exasperatedly.

“Ah, yes, I had nearly forgotten,” he drawls, “the patient I cannot touch.”

“What are you doing?” Hector asks him, partly out of fear and partly for genuine curiosity.

“I _ was _ attempting to feel for your lymph nodes,” he answers tersely, “but I suppose I shall have to try another time.”

“His fever has broken. Surely that is enough to put your mind at ease, at least for the moment.”

Iri’s voice cuts easily through the tension simmering between them. Hector sinks back into his pillows, curling guardedly into himself and away from Alucard. He grows distracted from the conversation by the smallest sound coming from the hall. Nails tapping along the floor, accompanied by a tiny whimper.

He hadn’t in his wildest dreams considered that Cezar would have survived that blood moon illuminated night. In truth he had tried very hard _ not _ to think about it, save for a few hopeless moments in the dark of Carmilla’s forge, and it had utterly broken his heart. He barely whispers the word, a tiny, breathless murmur of the dog’s name, and the answering bark breaks him.

Cezar comes barreling through the door at the sound of his master’s voice, announcing his arrival with a series of excited yelps. Hector makes to get out of his bed, pulls back the blankets and nearly has his feet to the floor before he is intercepted by an adamant Alucard. Cezar jumps sprightly up to meet him and lands directly next to Iri before bowling his way into Hector’s lap. The little pug wriggles joyfully in his arms, and Hector crumples around him. Tears fall from his eyes to dot the sheets he lies in as he tries, fails, to stifle a happy sob.

“Oh, little Cezar,” he laughs, and his friend makes quick work in licking the tears from his face. Cezar whines desperately, his tail wagging too quickly for the eye to follow. Hector plants kiss after kiss to his soft, black head. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

Cezar tucks himself squarely under Hector’s chin. He tilts his head towards Alucard and barks at him.

“He was at your door at all hours, scratching and howling to be let in. I am quite astonished you managed not to wake from all the noise.”

Hector hardly hears him. His face is split in a wide, blissful grin and his heart is almost unbearably full. He catches Iri’s eye as Cezar finally begins to calm, snuggling himself close at Hector’s side, his head cushioned against his leg. She watches the two of them, a sweet, fond expression awash over her.

“Where did you find him?” Hector thinks to ask, still reeling as Cezar gazes up at him with his lone, blue eye.

“Upstairs, in what I assume was once your forge.” At the sound of Alucard’s voice, the dog’s tail once more begins to sway. “What did you say his name was?”

“Cezar.” Hector softly pets at the dog’s head. He scratches behind his good ear. “He was my companion. My most loyal friend.”

Iri chuckles. “From the look of it I would say he still might be.” She extends her fingers to Cezar, who sniffs at them eagerly. His eye closes contentedly as she gives him a pat.

“In my ignorance, I have taken to calling him Sirius.” Iri snorts at that. Alucard throws her a knowing glance. “I must admit that Cezar is more… fitting.”

Hector hums in agreement.

Alucard scribbles something on the sheet of parchment at the bedside table. Hector cannot quite decipher what the numbers mean, but he knows they have to do with the tests he performs to assess his health. A gloved hand adjusts something at the glass bottle that feeds the tube in his hand.

“If you manage to eat something before the day’s end, I shall consider removing the needle from your hand. The rest of the antibiotics can be taken by mouth.”

With that, Alucard swans from the room, leaving the door open in his wake. A weight seems to lift itself from Hector’s chest. He sighs with the relief of it. Cezar noses wetly at his hand and he absentmindedly returns to stroking the dog’s fur, finding a gentle solace there he had greatly missed.

His fingers prod at the needle secured at the back of his hand.

“Hector,” Iri says in warning. Her fingers come to rest at his wrist. He hisses as the tubing pinches uncomfortably against his skin.

“I want it out,” he tells her. “I can feel it whenever I move my arm. It _ stings.” _

“If you would like it taken out, you will have to eat first.”

“I am not hungry,” he says stubbornly.

“You have not eaten in days. Hungry or no, you need something in your belly, and soon. Your appetite will come back to you in time.”

Hector bites down on his tongue before he can snap at her and tell her what it is he truly _ needs. _He needs out of this bed. He needs to bathe, to wash himself of the nightmare he has left behind. He needs distance between himself and the vampire that keeps trying to lay his hands on him.

He needs to cut his fucking hair.

“I happen to know there is a fine pot of stock simmering away in the kitchens at this very moment.” Iri’s pointer finger taps playfully at one of his knuckles. “We can start with that. And then after, anything you want. It shall be yours.”

“Not tea, though, I suppose.”

She gives him a wry look. He avoids her eyes.

“Please tell me what is troubling you. I could try and guess but I would rather not.”

“I don’t…” The words catch in his throat, even as he sits at a loss for what to say. Fear sits coldly at the back of his tongue. He swallows. Breathes. “I just… I cannot stand it. He comes too close and I simply panic. It is like…”

Like being choked. Like so many hands reaching for him, taking until he has nothing left to give and then going back for more. Like his face being shoved into a pillow and left to smother. Like freezing to death.

“I am sorry.” It aches to say it. His heart feels shattered in his chest, rattling about like so much broken glass. He knows she understands, knows she has seen with her own eyes, and the shame of it paralyzes him.

“I will not ask you to trust him,” Iri whispers. She draws herself close, and he does not recoil. He _ welcomes _ the hand she carefully places at his shoulder. There is comfort there, as she lends him the strength he so egregiously lacks. “I cannot ask that of you, but Alucard is only trying to help. And I know that it is more difficult than can be put into words. You do not have to let him touch you. I urge you though, for your own peace of mind, to understand that neither Aria nor I would ever let him do you any harm. I promise you.”

“He killed Dracula,” Hector reminds her and, god, as he says the words they finally sink in. That Dracula is dead and gone, along with the world as he once knew it, and he is _ lost. _

“Then it is a good thing he has agreed to help, is it not?” She pats at his hand. “What you need to concern yourself with now is _ rest. _ Nothing else.”

Aria returns to them, a pitcher held firmly in one hand and four cups under her arm. “I thought it would not do to let you drink alone, so I have brought plenty for all of us.” She pours him a generous serving and Hector takes it with a small whisper of thanks. “Ah,” she says delightedly, her eyes falling to the dog now sprawled over his lap, “I see your friend has found his way back to you. He was beside himself while you recovered.”

“This is Cezar.” Cezar lifts his head at the sound of his name. Aria extends her fingers to him, grinning as he gives them a friendly lick.

“He is precious.”

_ “An féidir linn caint?” _

Aria offers her sister a curious glance. “Aye,” she answers. _ “An bhfuil rud éigin i gceist?” _

Iri rises from her place beside Hector to quietly take her sister by her hand. She leads her out of the room. Hector simply leans back against his pillows as he sips at his juice and wishes, petulantly, that it were tea.

* * *

“May I speak with you?”

Alucard supposes, as he walks into his study to find it occupied, that he does not have much of a choice.

Aria tilts her head as he enters the room, her hands clasped politely in front of her. The whole thing is annoyingly cordial, despite the fact that she has invited herself in without a word of warning. Alucard sits at the desk, his hands full of letters from the neighboring village.

“Certainly,” he mutters as he searches for a letter opener. “Is something the matter? Your friend is still breathing?”

“Hector is resting,” she answers, taking a step towards him. She seems to float through the room, like a high-born lady and far from the determined, militaristic gait of her sister. “He fell asleep a few moments ago. I believe the tonic for his cough might have made him drowsy.”

“That is a common side effect. He could use the sleep, in any case.” The letter opener slips, rips through part of the writing inside the envelope. He sighs.

“There is tension between the two of you.”

“Is there? I had not noticed,” he snaps, and the sight of her great, round eyes makes him regret it. “It is difficult,” he admits, “to attempt to heal a man when he spurns every touch as though it burns. I walk into the room and he stares at me like a dog expecting to be kicked. I cannot so much as take his temperature without the risk of sending him into hysterics. It is _ trying.” _

“I understand it is difficult.” Aria shifts on her feet, as though she is carefully considering her next few words. “I am not here to deny that. But Hector has been through a hellish ordeal, and it has greatly affected him. More even than I think he realizes.”

“Yes,” Alucard scoffs, “I have heard of his ordeal. I’m sure it was very hard for him, indulging an old, grieving man in his madness until it all fell apart and he was forced to face the repercussions. How arduous it must have been, to live in my father’s castle, to eat his food and drink his wine for a year before the next aspiring vampiric monarch thought to use him as the tool he offered himself up to be. A veritable tragedy indeed—”

_ “That is enough!” _

The walls of the study shake with the strength of her voice, amplified, he suspects, by magic. The inkwell rattles against the desk. A book or two is shaken loose from the shelf behind her, tumbling to the floor to lie splayed out over the rug. Alucard stares, stunned.

“You are frustrated. I realize that. And I will assume that is to blame for the cruelty you have just shown for a sick, traumatized man you are meant to be _ caring _ for. This has been easy for none of us, least of all Hector.” Her fists are clenched tightly at her sides. “Until only very recently, whenever someone with teeth like yours touched him it was to beat or... abuse him. Do you understand? He flinches from you because he is _ frightened.” _

The words settle in the back of his throat like bile. Alucard’s stomach turns with what she has told him, and he clenches his jaw against it. “What would you have me do? Coddle him? Serve him tea whenever he calls for it?”

“Make an effort!” she spits at him. “Approach him with kindness, with compassion, instead of your thinly veiled sarcasm and contempt. You like to hide yourself behind your barbs and your wit, using your words to keep others at a distance. I will tell you it will not work. He will never respond to it.” 

The insinuation irks him. “You presume to know so much for someone so young, who hardly met me just a few days ago.

She scoffs. “You have spoken with my sister, yes? And I am _ far_ older than you.” Aria pauses for a moment in her indignation. She lets out an impassioned breath. “Do you know what a changeling is, Alucard?”

He narrows his eyes at her, unsure what point she means to prove. “I am familiar. A human child is stolen away by faeries, often in infancy, and replaced with a faerie child. The changeling.” He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair. “Why? Do you mean to say Hector is a changeling?”

“Yes, and no.” She mirrors his folded arms, gazing knowingly at him down the length of her upturned nose. “There is no such thing. Faeries do not steal human children, and we certainly do not give away our own.”

Alucard’s eyes widen. “Oh?”

“A mortal woman notices her child is… different. Perhaps they are too quiet. They have trouble interacting with other children. They may be sensitive to things like noise, certain sensations or tastes. They lash out for seemingly no reason. She determines that something must be wrong, but she does not know what.”

“Naturally, she assumes it to be the work of faeries.”

“The Free Folk would never willingly harm a child, mortal or Fae or otherwise. It goes against our very nature. There is nothing wrong with these children; they simply experience the world differently. They _ are _ different, and to people who do not understand that, it is a crime. Had Hector been born in another part of the world there is a very real chance he would have been left in the woods as a child, in hopes that the faeries would take him back in exchange for the one he was supposedly traded for.”

Alucard huffs an aborted attempt at a laugh. “How ironic it is, then, that faeries did take him in.”

Aria does not laugh at his dark attempt at humor.

“Listen to me. Be gentler with him; have _ patience. _ Appeal to your own humanity, Adrian Tepes.”

A sudden flare of hurt hurtles bright and cold through his chest. The sting of it is eerily familiar. Shame, he realizes, as he watches as Aria shows herself from the room, her small, airy footsteps strangely loud in his ears. The portrait of his mother smiles down at him from its place on the wall, and he cannot force himself to meet its eyes. His mother would not be smiling were she here to see him now.

The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur. He barely acknowledges the sun as it sinks lower and lower in the sky. Word reaches him at some point that, by way of a hopeful Iri, that Hector has managed to keep down a bowl of chicken broth. When she is gone, Alucard stands from his chair and drags himself to the kitchens.

The tea he brews is weak, nearly too weak to be palatable. He has no way of knowing how Hector takes it, how much cream or sugar to add, so he decides on a bit of both. He makes a mental note to ask at some point. The warmth from the cup seeps through his gloves and into his hands as he climbs the stairs, careful not to spill.

The door is open, but he is sure to knock anyway, knuckles rapping gently against the old wood. Three pairs of eyes fall on him at the sound. There is a collection of books littered about the bed, no doubt from the library in the next hallway. Hector holds one in his hands, as though he were considering it, and Alucard notices it to be an in depth volume on astronomy. He recalls studying the same book as a boy under his father’s tutelage. Sirius—_ Cezar, _he reminds himself—perks up at the sight of him. The dog yips out a happy bark, his tail thumping against the bed.

“May I come in?” he asks. Hector stares at him, his gaze dropping toward the cup in his hands. He gives him a slow, uncertain nod. Alucard approaches the bedside, placing the tea atop the table. He hopes, genuinely, that Hector sees it for what it is. A truce. An offering. An apology. “I’ve come to remove the port, now that you’ve eaten.”

“Oh.” The word is so quiet, so unsure, that he almost does not hear it.

“May I have your hand please?”

He waits, palm upturned in front of him, for Hector to bequeath him his hand. Hector hesitates. Alucard can see him swallow thickly, can hear the flutter of his heart in his chest. He waits calmly, and when Hector finally bequeaths him his hand something tender and grateful comes loose near his heart. He offers him a quiet smile.

“Thank you.” The bandage comes away as he unravels it from Hector’s skin. The flesh near the port where the needle has pierced the skin is slightly bruised but otherwise intact. He disconnects the tubing, closing off the glass phial so that it empties of solution. “This will sting a little; I am going to pull it free.”

Hector watches his fingers as he quickly grips at the base of the needle and tugs it away in one fluid motion. There is a tiny trickle of blood that slips free in the aftermath, and he swiftly presses a wad of fresh cotton to the wound, applying firm pressure. Hector flexes his hand, reacclimating to the freedom of movement the lack of the needle has restored to him. Alucard wraps his palm again in new gauze, clean and white against Hector’s skin.

“It may be a day or two yet before you will be able to get out of bed.” He gathers up the rest of the tubing to take back into the laboratory for sterilization. “So long as you continue to eat and drink plenty of fluids.”

Hector holds his newly bandaged hand close to his body. He tenderly runs his fingers over the gauze. “Thank you,” he murmurs to Alucard. He meets his eyes and this time, instead of the fear and apprehension he expects, he discovers a timid gratitude.

“You are welcome,” Alucard says in response.

Later that evening, as he delivers a bottle of his mother’s favored antibiotic tincture, Hector is asleep. Alucard places his concoction at the bedside table and finds an empty teacup sitting in its saucer. He takes it with him, and he can see Aria offer him a knowing look from her chair in front of the fireplace.

* * *

In the darkness of Carmilla’s forge, as he’d been forced to bathe in a shallow basin of tepid water, Hector used to dream about the showers in Dracula’s castle. Hot, clean water that flowed through pipes in the walls, available immediately any time he wanted it, day or night. It was a luxury unlike any he had ever known before and, he is ashamed to admit, eventually grew to take for granted.

He had always been meticulous in his personal hygiene and appearance, before that choice had been taken from him. He bathed every evening before he went to sleep, cleaned his teeth three times a day, combed his hair while it was wet so the curls would dry evenly. His clothes were always tidy, even before he came to live in the castle. No holes or wrinkles if he could avoid them, and he kept them clean. He even used to apply oil to his skin after a bath to keep it nourished and healthy. If he ever deviated from the routine, it skewed the balance of his entire daily rhythm. It was like a stubborn piece of gravel in his boot, a strawberry seed stubbornly caught between his molars. Isaac had once told him he knew of princesses that did not preen themselves as diligently as Hector did. At the time he had simply thought it a strange thing to say. Looking back, he suspects his fellow forgemaster had been trying to tease him.

It was another dignity Carmilla had been all too eager to take from him. Living in his own filth and being forced to wear rags had simply been one more layer of the hell she had crafted for him. He had no option but to adapt, to survive with his filthy hair, the grime under his nails, the dried blood caked to his skin. Of course, he was made to bathe before she deigned to visit him in the forge so as not to offend her and, while humiliating, he grappled for the chance to be _ clean _ whenever he could.

Water falls over his skin in a curtain, hot and heavy and pure. Hector slumps against the tile as it soaks through his hair, plastering it to his skull. It falls past his shoulders now, wet as it is. The slick of it against the back of his neck makes him _ sick. _It has taken him nearly two days to build up the strength to bathe himself, and his knees threaten to buckle under the weight.

He tries not to look at himself as he washes, but the scars are there all the same. He feels them underneath his fingertips as he drenches himself in soap. Hector scrubs at them, as though the more soap he uses, the harder he scours, the more likely he’ll be able to wipe them away. He scrubs until the flesh is pink and raw, until it is too tender to touch and still it is not enough. It will never be enough. Not to erase the bruises he cannot see, the cracks that spider over his very psyche, the fingerprints burned far and deep beneath his skin. Hector drags the suds through his hair and his fingers clench, arms trembling as he has to stop himself from tearing it out at the roots.

He rinses, and after the water is switched off, the silence is deafening against the tiled walls and the marble floors.

There had been no mirrors for him in Carmilla’s castle. It occurs to him, as he stares at his reflection for the first time in months, that he hardly recognizes the man he finds there. This man is all but a skeleton. Sunken cheeks withered beneath paled, sun-starved skin. Ribs that cage his torso like some grotesque, gorgeted corset. A smattering of scars over his arms, his chest, his legs. Cuts and scrapes that had no help to heal. At his throat lie the indentations of Miron’s teeth, still healing, still bruised. At the delicate skin stretched over his hip bones, the prominent wings of his pelvis are scored with gouges, jagged, white ribbons of scar tissue split anew by the still healing lacerations of the most recent attack. Hector drags the sensitive pads of his fingers over their agonizing lengths and wonders, with morbid fascination, if he could feel the layers between them. If he could count how many times he had been raped.

He looks… hollow. He _ feels _hollow.

When he can no longer stand the sight of himself, he turns his back on the mirror. He dries off with a ludicrously plush, warm towel. He dresses in clothes he highly suspects had at one time belonged to Alucard. They are too big, the linen tunic draped over him like a robe and the doeskin breeches too wide in the waist, too long in the leg. They are clean and finely made, but they are not his, and he has never felt more like a stranger in his own skin. He had once kept some clothes of his own in his quarters, simple articles carried over from a life left behind in Rhodes. The forgemaster’s vestments Dracula had gifted to him were long gone. Ripped from him in shreds when he’d arrived in Styria, like so much else he’d once had. Not that he could bring himself to wear them again even if he still had them.

Aria greets him when he returns to his room, her arms filled with new books. She offers him a friendly smile, her mouth opening to inquire about his shower, or how the clothes fit, or something else polite and mundane, and he shakes his head. The smile falls away in an instant. She puts her books down and crosses the room to him.

“Oh, Hector, what is the matter?” she asks him and it _ burns. _ His still healing lungs suddenly cannot draw in enough air. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help,” she begs.

“Scissors,” he pants. “And a hand mirror. Please.”

She is gone without another word, and he collapses to sit on the edge of the bed. Time passes him by before she returns, though he cannot keep track, and when she returns to press the scissors into his fingers he hardly has the strength to wield them. She holds the mirror for him as he pulls his hair into one fist, measures out a familiar length, and cuts.

The hair sizzles as he throws it into the fireplace, still damp as it is from the shower. Aria watches with wide, sad eyes. Hector holds himself, arms wrapped tightly around his middle, and breathes.

The weight is gone and yet it is _ not_. The revolting tickle at the back of his neck, the suffocating glide against his collarbones, all of it gone, but he can still _ hear _ her. Her voice still whispers in his ear. _ Good boy, Hector. Good puppy. So pretty. You’ll be good for me, won’t you? Good boy. Good boy. Good boy. Good b— _

“Hector.”

The noise stops. For the moment at least. He lifts his head to Aria. She holds the mirror out to him.

“Would you like me to even it out in the back for you?”

She settles behind him, her knees bent either side of his waist. He watches himself in the mirror, watches as she carefully and methodically straightens out the line of the cut. When she is done, she meets his eyes in the reflection.

“There.” She offers him another tiny, weak smile. “Handsome.”

He does not feel handsome. Hector had hoped, above all else, that he would recognize the reflection of his face by now. That cutting his hair to the same length he has kept nearly all his life would help him to feel more like the person he’d been before the world had been pulled out from underneath his very feet. It does not work.

“When does it stop?”

The question catches her off guard. He can tell. “What do you mean, Hector?”

“When will I be able to look at myself, and see something besides what has been done to me?”

He can feel it. Can feel the sob as it catches in her throat. Can feel the tears welling in her eyes as surely as if they were his own. Her smile wavers through it all, and when the wobble of her bottom lip finally snuffs it out he swallows against the scream welling in his vocal chords.

“When I learn,” she says to him, quietly, “I shall tell you.”

He leans into her. Tilts his head back. Aria’s arms come to wind around his torso, her small palms clasped tightly above his heart. He can feel the soft press of her cheek into his shoulder blade, her warm breath fanning out over his spine. She squeezes him. Hector holds his hand over hers, feels the rise and fall of his chest under them, feels that of hers at his back, and _ breathes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Irish translations:
> 
> _An féidir linn caint?:_ May I speak with you?
> 
> _An bhfuil rud éigin i gceist?:_ Is something the matter?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!!!! Please leave me a comment with your feedback! I love reading them!


	13. Part XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kind words left on the last chapter! I really appreciate them. Again, thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Hector has always, ever since he was a small boy, been happiest with a routine.

Each morning, he rises at a sensible hour. He dresses in his borrowed clothes, washes his face, and cleans his teeth. There is tea usually ready for him in the kitchens by the time he makes it down the stairs, brewed by either Aria or Iri. He prepares a cup for himself, a spoonful of honey and the barest splash of lemon juice, and joins one or both of them in the formal dining hall for a small breakfast. There had been an attempt to serve him porridge when he was only just recovering, and he had adamantly refused it. There is no more talk of porridge after that. These days, breakfast is typically something light. A portion of fruit, or toasted, day-old bread with honey spread. It is usually followed by his morning dose of antibiotics, which is often chased down with an additional cup of tea to rinse the taste from his mouth.

For the rest of the morning, stretching into the afternoon, Hector reads. After breakfast Aria will join him in the library for an hour or so. They take the time to look through what can only be a _ sliver _ of the massive collection Dracula has managed to compile over the centuries. The two of them often decide on a pair of books to read themselves and then trade between each other in order to discuss. They break for the afternoon meal, often a light soup or a cold spread. At this time, Iri is usually hip-deep somewhere either in the castle’s magical archives or the Belmont trove below. More often than not, Aria will bid him farewell to join her sister, the temptation of knowledge too much to resist.

As the daylight peters into evening, Hector attempts to make his way through a pile of books he has amassed for himself in his bedroom. If his eyelids grow heavy while he reads, he might close them for an hour or two, having been encouraged by Alucard to take every opportunity available to rest. After dinner, another affair passed in a hall far too grand and cavernous for three people, he joins Iri and Aria to hear what they managed to learn that day and another dose of bitter medicine. It is comforting to listen to the two of them discuss their findings, arguing over theories or hashing out the logistics of newly learned magics. When he grows tired, Hector excuses himself to his room.

Before bed he bathes, often by shower or, when the mood strikes him, in the massive bath chamber in the lower floors. After he is clean he dries himself, combs through his wet hair, and moisturizes his skin with a bottle of perfumed oil he managed to scavenge from his previous quarters. By the time he retires to bed, the moon is often high in the sky.

Much of those first couple of weeks he spends either sleeping or reading. As his strength slowly starts to return to him, he ventures more and more from his bedroom to other parts of the castle.

The castle is so much different now than it had been months before. There were curtains left open during the day as well as the night, illuminating the halls and rooms with gentle sunlight. The castle always seemed to exude a grandiose, awe-inspiring silence. When Dracula had walked the halls, the silence had brought with it an indescribable gravity, a sense of foreboding that stuck to the roof of his mouth. Now it is... peaceful. Like the ruins of a church slowly being reclaimed by nature. There is a quiet stagnation that seemed to settle in the cracks of the place. It is oddly comforting.

There is a sitting room tucked away somewhere on the second floor that he likes to frequent with his books. It is smaller than the one where he and Isaac sporadically passed their free time, as scarce as it was. It seemed more private. Personal. There is but one sofa with one other armchair to match, both drawn near the fireplace. Hector supposes what he likes most about it are the windows that opened out over the Wallachian countryside. It is especially charming in the evening light, when the golden hour paints the room in a wash of cozy color and the chill sets in just enough to make the fire that much more enjoyable. He keeps its location to himself, retreating there when the world grows a little too loud around him.

Once, he’d braved a visit to the quarters he’d occupied under Dracula to find them mostly destroyed. There were gaping holes in the walls, as though something had barrelled through the stone and made it cleanly through to the other side. The furniture, his bed, desk, and chairs had been all but reduced to splinters. Claw marks decorated the floors, scorch marks burnt into the woodwork everywhere he looked. Many of his former belongings were in pieces: the few clothes he’d left behind torn to tatters and dust riddled; all of his bath oils shattered from their bottles, save for the one he found still mostly intact; many of his notes and journals full of previous work littered about the floor like detritus. It had stung, to see so much of what he’d once been so proud to have now strewn about like leaves in the wind.

He stays far and away from the forge, content to leave the memories and the shame of what had transpired there firmly locked away.

He has been strongly advised to keep indoors. The less cold air for his lungs, the better. And he was expressly forbidden from the Belmont archives below. “Centuries’ worth of dust and mold,” Alucard had explained. “I would have reservations about a healthy person with an uncompromised immune system venturing down there for long. Much less you and your cough.” Hector relies on second hand recounts from Iri and Aria of just what exactly there is to be found there.

Cezar remains glued to his side more often than not, but occasionally the dog leaves him behind for reasons he cannot figure out. He hasn’t a clue where Cezar disappears to every now and then, sometimes in the middle of the night. But he always comes back before too long, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he grins at Hector.

Oddly enough, he rarely sees Alucard elsewhere in the castle. He does not take his meals with the three of them, if he takes them at all. Hector cannot be sure. He was clearly not experienced enough in these matters to hold his own with full-blooded vampires; he knew even less of what to expect of the dhampir son of Dracula. He sees Hector long enough to assess his health, to ask after his recovery, and to make strained conversation with the two faerie sisters. And then he is gone. He leaves the castle often, and Hector cannot guess as to where he ends up. He only knows Alucard leaves with a black, leather bag nearly full to bursting and always comes back with it mostly emptied.

The nights are still difficult. Hector leaves his door open to the hallway, refusing to close it for fear he may yet wake to find it locked on the other side. It is irrational, he knows. Aria and Iri sleep in the room next to his own, and despite his own reservations about Alucard he supposes if Dracula’s son had decided to keep him as a prisoner he would have done so already. It does little to assuage the panic that seeps through to his blood at the sound of footsteps down the hall, or that of a key turning a lock. At night, when the castle is dark and devoid of all sounds of life, the nightmares that followed him from Styria find their way to his bed.

Miron may be dead, but the ghost of his icy hands and their bruising grip haunt his dreams, the scars at his hips itching like they’ve been burned. Carmilla’s voice still coos to him as he sleeps, her fingers clawing along his scalp, his chest, his belly. There are some nights he wakes both freezing and sweating, shivering violently amongst his sheets. There are other nights he wakes with tears streaming down his face and soaking his pillow. There are nights when he wakes and struggles to make it to his chamber pot before he vomits. He wanders the halls in the aftermath, lost in his own memories of another dark castle that simply won’t leave him. His bare feet lead him past door after door, tapestries and portraits and decorative pieces passing by in a blur of moon-drenched space.

He wakes one such night, having dreamt of his face shoved in the dirt and filthy cloth halfway down his throat, and he stumbles from his bed, still in his night clothes. The world rushes by as he walks, trying to right itself in the wake of it all, and when he comes back to himself it is to the sight of a closed door, ominous and familiar.

The door to his forge.

If he were to open it, he knows she would be waiting for him at the other side. Carmilla and her beautiful mask, her painted lips and her lofty eyes. He had been such a fucking idiot. She’d known he was an idiot, knew the whole time. She’d cast a line and he all but hooked himself on it. He had been so eager, so hungry to be useful. To be _ valued. _ She fed him sugar-coated truth with each bold-faced lie, and he had eaten it all out of the palm of her hand like the dog she said he was. And he’d done the same for Dracula, all in exchange for pretty words and a chance to be great. To _ help. _

“Hector?”

The tiny, dreamy call of his name tears him back to reality with all the force of a slap. He gasps, foggy lungs pulling in the breath they’d forgotten to take in his reprieve. Hector turns his head and finds Aria staring at him, a puzzled expression tugging at her mouth. She is dressed only in her nightgown. Her feet, like his, are bare against the floorboards. It is the smallest she has ever looked to him, fleeting and ephemeral inside the yawning maw of this castle at night.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His mouth feels suddenly dry. “Did I wake you?”

“I heard you leave your room. Is everything all right?” Her eyes fall past him to the door at his back. She tilts her head. “What is this place?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” he lies.

“Is it the dreams again?”

“Yes.” Hector crosses his arms, his fingers clenching in the cotton of his nightshirt.

“Would it help you to talk about it?”

_ “No.” _

He does not mean to say it so firmly, but the thought of admitting to her of the nightmares that chase him from his bed repels him. Perhaps if it were Iri that had found him, Iri that had asked, she would at least understand. She would know the agony that followed him all the way from Styria, dogging at his heels like a hound scenting blood. He would not burden Aria with his own pain.

She holds her hand out to him. Offers it to him with no further question. “Come along,” she whispers softly. “Let us get you back into bed.”

She leads him back down the stairs, the moonlight following them from corridor to corridor. When they happen upon the familiar hallway that houses his bedroom, she leads him past his door to stand in front of her own. The door creaks open before he has time to ask. 

Inside, the room smells faintly of flowers. Iri, settled comfortably in bed, rolls over to drowsily crack an eye open at them.

_ “Cad é seo?” _ she calls, her voice gravelly with sleep.

“Nightmare.” Aria pulls Hector alongside her. She herds him fondly into the bed, freezing feet and all, and climbs in after him. Hector curls in on himself between them. Iri rolls over to face him. A familiar blue light dances at her fingertips, and when she ghosts them over his face, over his eyelids and his temples, a gentle wash of calm settles over his body.

“There,” she murmurs. He can feel her breath against his lips as she speaks. _ “Níl níos mó, mo chara. _ You will be safe here. Rest your poor head.”

Relief pools in the chambers of his heart at the words. It floods his blood in his veins alongside the exhaustion tugging behind his eyes. Aria nestles in close at his side, and Iri rolls back over to offer him the strong, comforting line of her spine. Hector relishes the security found between them, the sense of belonging that he realizes, finally, he’d _ missed. _Each sister flanks him at either side and he knows, even as he wanders the liminal space between sleeping and waking, that no nightmare will find him here.

* * *

“Where is it you go?”

Alucard blinks in the face of the question. He nearly loses track of Hector’s pulse as he watches his time piece. Hector was not usually one for conversation during these little visits of theirs. While he was less reluctant to being touched, at least in a clinical sense, Alucard could hardly say he was warming up to him.

“You are referring to when I leave the castle?”

“Yes.”

He stops his pocket watch. Scribbles the recorded heart rate into his log. Hector watches like he always does, in that observant yet wary way he has about him. Alucard meets his eyes. “I go to the nearby village once or twice a week.”

“You do?”

He nods in reply, holding out his gloved hands. “Your lymph nodes, please.” Hector pulls his hair back from his throat. The mostly healed scars of the vampire’s bite glare at him from the skin over his carotid. Alucard can hear Hector hold his breath as he reaches under his jaw, palpitating below his ears.

“What do you do there?”

“I visit people who are sick, like I do here for you. I bring them medicine, teach them how to care for themselves.”

“I see. So you’re the village doctor.”

“I suppose,” he says, the corner of his lips quirked in a half smile.

“Is the blacksmith quite ill, then?”

“... I beg your pardon?”

“It seems like you visit the forge fairly often. Occasionally when you return there is soot, or anvil grease on your collar.”

Alucard absentmindedly reaches for the collar of his shirt. He looks down at it to find there is indeed a black, ashy stain blotched over the white fabric. Damn Artur and his enormous, wandering hands. He has half a mind to snap at Hector, to insist he mind his own fucking business, but he finds nothing in the other man’s eyes save genuine curiosity. There is nothing assuming or sinister behind the expression. Alucard lowers his hackles.

“Yes. The blacksmith has been... running a fever of late. It appears to come and go.”

“Is it serious?”

“Oh, hardly. He is in good hands.” His exam complete, Alucard begins to gather his instruments. Hector passes him his thermometer. “Luckily, now that winter is over fewer people are falling ill. This time of year it is mostly hay fever and venereal diseases.” He chuckles, offering Hector a light hearted smile, but it is not returned.

Hector’s face has gone suddenly pale. He won’t meet Alucard’s eyes. All the air feels as though it has been sucked from the room. Alucard’s mouth opens to inquire if something is the matter, when Hector interrupts him.

“Can vampires contract venereal disease?”

The question all but knocks the wind out of him. He nearly drops the thermometer to the floor, nearly shatters it and splatters mercury all over the priceless, centuries old carpet. Alucard has to stop himself from gaping, scrambles to answer before Hector is forced to repeat himself. “I… No.” He shakes his head. “No, they can’t.”

“Can they… pass it on to others?”

“No.”

The taste of bile crawls up the back of his soft palate as he considers why Hector would need to ask that question.

“Your cough still concerns me,” he says quickly, desperate to change the subject. “You’re still taking the tonic?”

“... I try not to. It makes me lethargic.”

“That is a side effect. Please continue to take it as instructed so your airway has the chance to heal. Excuse me.”

With that, Alucard tosses the last of his things into his bag and snaps it closed. He bids Hector a hasty goodbye and turns on his heel to leave the room before he has to look him in the eyes again. The determined rhythm of his boots echoes through the hallway and up the stairs, down the corridor and into the kitchens.

He knew. He_ knew_. He’d suspected it himself, with all the cryptic language Aria and Iri used to describe it, the way Hector couldn’t stand to be touched by him. He’d known all along, and had chosen to simply not think about it. To deliberately play ignorant to what the truth underneath it all had been. It had worked until he’d seen that fucking _ look _ on Hector’s face. It is difficult to resent someone, after learning something so cruel.

_ Be gentler with him. He has paid for his sins. There are fates worse than death. _

Alucard leans over the sink, his gloved fingers all but cracking the porcelain into pieces, and tries not to think about what someone like Carmilla, or her men, would do to someone like Hector.

He can hear Iri well down the hall before she sets foot into the kitchen. When she finds him, obstinate and hunched over the sink, he can feel her eyes boring into the back of his skull.

“You are back,” she murmurs. The ice chest opens behind him, and the sound of juice being poured into a cup burbles in the air between them. “How is he?” she asks him, and he has no idea how to answer. “Any improvement at all?”

“He hasn’t been drinking the tonic.”

“For the cough?” He nods his head. “Ah. I shall… have a talk with him.”

“He’s just asked me if vampires are capable of spreading_ venereal disease.” _

Alucard turns slowly to face her, and he has to admit it is the first time he has ever seen her anything less than extraordinarily well put together. Her eyes go wide as she meets his. Her hand slowly falls to rest her cup on the kitchen table.

“He what?”

“I am his physician. I should have been told.”

“You _ were _ told!” she spits at him, her voice shrill in the late afternoon quiet. “Do not look at me like that, Alucard. You are a smart boy, and this is not hard.”

“I wasn’t…” He rakes his fingers through his hair, some of it falling messily into his eyes. He smells like a forge. “I was unprepared for…”

“I am not about to lay all the abuses Hector has suffered out for your convenience; I will not break what trust we have managed to build. If you need all the awful details, then that is his story to tell. Not mine.”

“You expect me to go back in there and ask another man how many times he was fucked against his will? The same man who will barely let me touch him long enough to take his temperature?” Alucard’s stomach churns, and he bites down on his tongue to stifle the full body shudder sitting at the base of his spine. The iron tang of his own blood fills his mouth.

“I expect you to act like a fucking _ adult _ about it.” Iri shakes her head in exasperation. Her braid tumbles over her shoulder. “What did you say to him, Alucard?”

“I… I told him no.”

She cocks her head, as if expecting him to have more to say. When he remains silent, she relents. “That’s it?” His lack of an answer more than suffices. “Hector asks you of the possibility he was made ill by vampires who held him captive, and you simply _ left?” _ She does not give him the chance to defend himself, and, as the implication of her words sinks in, Alucard is not sure he deserves it. “Fucking _ shite_. Get out of the way.”

Iri brushes past Alucard, her shoulder knocking into him, hard. As the sound of her heated march peters off towards the stairs, he leans his back against the cold, unforgiving porcelain of the sink and thinks about, in no uncertain terms, what the fuck he is supposed to do now.

* * *

There are nights when the nightmares are not given the opportunity to plague Hector, as from time to time he is unable to fall asleep in the first place. It is on one such night, sick of tossing and turning amidst sheets that never seemed to sit right on his skin, that he decides to abandon all failed attempts at rest in favor of a few hours of exhausted quiet to himself.

The hour is late, early even. He had heard Aria and Iri return from the Belmont hold not long after he himself retired for the evening, and he suspects they must be asleep by now. Nevertheless, Hector silently climbs out of his bed to gather up two of his most recent finds from the library. He tiptoes his way down the corridor and towards the staircase, his bare feet padding silently along the floor.

He thinks nothing of the fact that there is already a light on in his private sanctuary. The door to the little sitting room sits cracked on its hinges, letting free a luminous sliver of the fire’s warm glow. If anything, he is grateful the room will already be warm; fireplaces in the castle have a habit of springing to life on their own before inhabitants even enter the room, and Hector cannot spare a guess as to whether it is by magic or by design. Perhaps both, he thinks as he swings the door open to let himself in, and he is nearly startled to death by the pale figure staring at him with lukewarm golden eyes from the couch.

It seems the room is already occupied.

“I’m sorry,” Hector pants. His hand flies to his chest as if to quell his rapidly beating heart. “I had no idea anyone else was in here.”

Alucard scoffs boredly. “It’s my castle, is it not?”

“I…” One of the books begins to slip from Hector’s arms, and he has to bend gracelessly to catch it before it hits the floor. “Indeed it is. S-sorry to disturb you, I’ll go—”

“Wait.”

Already halfway out of the room, Hector stops in his tracks. Alucard beckons to him with a lazy wave of his hand, inviting him back in. To his surprise, Cezar’s head peeks out at him over Alucard’s hip. The dog gives him a sleepy glance, the mystery of where he disappears to at night finally solved. Hector deliberates with himself for a moment, not wanting to appear impolite but also wishing for the solitude he’d initially sought out. Nestled somewhere between the two is a subtle, genuine curiosity.

His legs seem to make the decision for him as he timidly crosses the room to sit in the armchair adjacent to the loveseat over which Alucard has draped himself like a spoiled cat. In the firelight he looks every bit the melodramatic vampire prince. He is barefoot, dressed only in soft breeches, not unlike the ones Hector has on himself, and over that he wears a long silken dressing gown that hangs open. Beneath it lies the great, jagged scar Hector has only barely glimpsed before over the collar of his shirt. In Alucard’s hand he holds a glass of something amber colored. The bottle sits unassumingly on the rug near the couch’s feet.

“Trouble sleeping?”

Hector’s gaze snaps from the scar at Alucard’s chest to his eyes, blinking tiredly in the face of the question. “Yes,” he answers softly. His books come to rest in his lap, the weight of them grounding against the nervous energy that settles in his muscles.

Alucard hums thoughtfully, staring into the depths of his rounded glass. “Perhaps,” he drawls, “if you were to drink the tonic I provided you, it might help you to sleep.” He knocks back the glass’s remaining contents in one drink.

“Therein lies the problem.” Hector offers him a self-deprecating smile. “Whenever I take it, it simply helps the nightmares along.”

Something in Alucard’s expression changes. A pinch in his brow that overshadows the nonchalance previously found there. “I… owe you an apology,” he tells Hector, moving from his languid sprawl to sit up.

“What for?”

“My hasty withdrawal the other day, after your exam. It was inconsiderate of me. I was… caught off guard, and while that does not excuse my lack of professionalism, I apologize for it. It will not happen again.” He clears his throat stiffly. “Should you ever have any other questions, or… feel it necessary to share anything else—”

“No,” Hector says firmly. Alarm bells sound dangerously between his ears, demanding this line of conversation ends now. He shakes his head. “No. If it’s all the same to you I… I really, _ really _ would rather not talk about it.”

“Of course.”

An awkward air simmers in the space between them. Something vulnerable and raw takes up residence near Hector’s heart. As though sensing his master’s distress, Cezar pulls himself from his place on the couch to lazily pad his way over, jumping into Hector’s chair. The pug snuggles in close at his side. Hector smoothes the palm of his hand over warm, black fur.

“Would you like a drink?” Alucard asks him suddenly. Without waiting for an answer, he stands to make for a drinks tray tucked into the corner of the room. It is stocked with more glasses and other bottles filled with similar looking alcohols.

“I wouldn’t say no.” Hector watches him pour, refilling his own glass and preparing a separate one for him, and when it is handed to him he considers its contents. He swirls the liquor around in the crystal a couple of times, admiring the rich color. It smells slightly sweet, with faint earthy notes following the sugar.

“Brandy,” Alucard supplies him as he stretches himself back over the loveseat. “From somewhere in Spain, if I am remembering correctly.”

Hector takes a conservative sip and is surprised by how much he enjoys it. He never had been much of one for spirits. During his years in Rhodes, if he had the money for it, he would occasionally buy himself a bottle of wine to be savored over several days, but that was the extent of his experience with drink. He does not believe he’s ever tried a brandy before, and as the sharp, fruity flavor rolls over his tongue he suspects he could grow to like it.

A memory comes to him as he drinks, and he gives voice to it. “Dracula offered me a drink when I first came to stay in this castle,” he says to Alucard. He half expects Alucard to rebuke him for it, but instead he is met with golden eyes piqued with interest.

“Oh?” Alucard drawls over the rim of his own glass.

“It was a white wine. Very sweet, and it was served in a chilled glass. I believe he told me it was French, though I cannot remember the name.”

“The Sauternes.” Alucard nods to himself. A sad smile blankets his mouth. “It was a sort of game he liked to play with himself, whenever a new guest arrived to the castle. He would serve them a drink of his own choosing, trying to speculate as to their tastes.” He looks at Hector, inquisitive. “Did you like it? The Sauternes.”

“I did,” Hector remembers fondly. He recalls having eagerly finished his glass, declining a second as it had gone embarrassingly quickly to his head. “It seems he was accurate in his assumption.”

“He typically was. Except for, notoriously, in the case of my mother.” He chuckles to himself, and Hector nearly jumps at the sound. He did not expect something so lighthearted to come from someone like Alucard, nor how much it would suit him. “For her, he chose a dry rosé, and when she did not finish her glass he could tell he had guessed incorrectly.”

“What did she like?”

Alucard grins. “Absinthe.”

Hector nearly sputters halfway through a mouthful of brandy. His face burns at the amused look Alucard gives him. When he once again composes himself, Hector rests his glass in his knee. “Every story I hear of your mother is more astonishing than the last. I… wish I’d had the chance to meet her.”

“I wish more people had known my father before her death.”

Hector does not know what to say to that. There was clearly so much more behind the sentiment than he was privy to, and he thinks that perhaps some other time he will ask for clarification, but for now he is drowsy, anxious, and has had an entire brandy on a nearly empty stomach. He realizes after several moments that his eyes have again fallen to the gruesome scar that spans most of Alucard’s torso. Alucard clears his throat and Hector quickly looks up, mortified at having been caught staring.

“That was a gift from him,” he says coldly. “The night my mother died.”

“I’m sorry,” Hector tells him, and he cannot rightly say what for. For many things, he supposes. His fingers twitch against his hip. They idly trace the shapes of his own scars where they lie beneath his clothes.

“As misplaced as the thought is, it is appreciated.” Alucard gestures to the books in Hector’s lap. “What have you got there?”

“Oh.” He gingerly places his now empty glass on the carpet adorned floor. “Just something I found in the library. This one is,” he pauses for a second, eyes scanning for their titles, “an account of flora and fauna found in the African continent, and this is an in depth volume on keeping bees.”

“Interesting.” Alucard tilts his head. “Do you enjoy reading?”

“Yes. It passes the time, “ Hector replies. “There is not much else I can think to do while keeping indoors, and the library’s selection is endless. I never took the chance to capitalize on it before, so I’m attempting to make up for lost time.”

“I’ll not keep you from your books, then.” Alucard reclines with his head on the couch’s arm, one hand balancing his glass over his bare stomach. “I will warn you, however, that some of the illustrations of African wildlife in that one are not _ entirely _ accurate.”

Hector smiles. “I shall keep that in mind.”

They sit in comfortable, lulling quiet for the next several hours, Hector reading and Alucard, he suspects, dozing. Hector must fall asleep at some point, because when he next comes to, his book has fallen shut in his hands and his neck is a bit sore from lolling against the backrest of the armchair. Alucard is nowhere to be found, but morning sunlight streams in from the windows to paint the carpet in bright, dreamy shapes, and draped over Hector’s torpid body is a long, silky robe.

* * *

_ It is for his health, _Alucard tells himself as he makes his way down the hall, boots sounding sharp and impactful against the stone. No other reason of note. Aria and Iri have not yet returned from an exploratory visit into the neighboring village, and Alucard is concerned that were he to eat alone, Hector would not meet the daily calorie intake set for him. At least, that is the excuse his mind provides him with as he stops in front of Hector’s open door.

He raps at the wood three times with his knuckles. Hector’s head snaps up from his reading chair, bent as he is over yet another book. Alucard clasps his hands formally behind his back.

“I’ve come to inform you that Aria and Iri will not be at dinner. They won’t be returning until later this evening. I am… extending an invitation, if you would like to join _ me _ instead. Of course, you are welcome to take your meals in your room if you would prefer, but the offer still stands.”

Hector simply gazes at him, as though he is lost for words, and Alucard takes it as an opportunity to retreat. He quickly turns on his heel to leave before Hector has the chance to answer. As he walks, or jogs rather, he flexes his hands at his side to expend the anxious energy built up in his nerves.

Later that evening, as he sits at his kitchen table to a meal of roast chicken, spring vegetables, and stupidly fine wine, he comes to the conclusion that he did not actually expect Hector to join him. He had simply extended an invitation. It was the polite thing to do, to ensure that a guest in his castle was not resigned to eating alone. Alucard picks up a spear of asparagus on his plate with a fork, nibbling disinterestedly at it as he skims through his mother’s medicinal notes.

He is utterly surprised when Hector steps shyly into the room, arms folded protectively over his middle.

While progress has undoubtedly been made, both in the clearing of his lungs and the strengthening of his body, the man is still unnervingly thin. Alucard watches carefully as Hector approaches the table to pull out a chair.

“I was expecting to find you in the dining hall,” he tells Alucard. His voice is hesitant. Timid, even. “Is this where you normally take your meals?”

“We always preferred to eat in the kitchen, as a family,” he explains. “The formal dining room is only that. Formal. Far too ostentatious for my taste.”

Hector sits. He moves slowly to make a plate for himself. Alucard reaches across the table to pour him a goblet of wine.

“So,” he begins, offering him a friendly smile. He meets Hector’s eyes and nearly stammers as, for the first time, he notices just how sharply _ blue _ they are. “Have you read anything of interest today?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave me a comment with any feedback you might have! I love reading them!!!!!!!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _Cad é seo?:_ What's this?
> 
> _Níl níos mó, mo chara:_ No more, my friend.


	14. Part XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your wonderful feedback on the last chapter! I'm really glad so many of you are enjoying this fic. A big thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading. If you haven't already, please check out her new fic [Enthralled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496005/chapters/53753908). It's fairly new and definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

The sun warms his face. The wind that tousles their hair is cool, but not icy. Hector closes his eyes, feels the rays of daylight kiss at his skin, and _ breathes. _The air smells of trees. Of grass, of earth, and of muddy water. Birds call to them from the tops of trees; their song delights him. A smile stretches easy and genuine over his lips.

It is the first time since that terrible night in Braila, perhaps since he left his humble house in Rhodes, that he feels _ warm. _Not burning through with hungry fever, not stifled by the blankets of a sick bed, but well and truly warm and alive. Finally, he is beginning to feel once again like himself. Tears pour forth to his eyes like a wellspring, and he welcomes them. Hector does not reach up to wipe them away, even as they slide over his face to fall against his lips, over his jaw and down his scarred neck.

Despite everything, despite Carmilla and Miron and just how close he has come to dying, the world is still beautiful.

His first venture out of doors has waited nearly a month and a half after their arrival to Wallachia. It takes that long for the fluid in his lungs to disperse, the cough that plagues him to soothe. Alucard at last clears him for a chance to explore the surrounding woods, and within minutes he has on his cloak and his boots. Aria accompanies him through the castle doors and into the wilderness. Outside, the weather is gorgeously mild. The chill has disappeared from the air, proof that winter has finally thawed from this country and that true spring has settled to stay.

Hector kneels in the grass, welcoming the dew that soaks through the knees of his trousers. The young, green blades are soft against the palm of his hand, almost ticklish. Aria lowers herself beside him. She primly smoothes the wrinkles of her cloak as she sits. It makes Hector smile.

“The weather turned so pleasant only a few days ago,” she tells him. “Almost as though it knew you would come; like the woods were waiting for you.”

Hector tilts his head. “There is a thought.”

The wood itself was remarkably peaceful. Trees that had once been brown and dreary, dead in the clutches of winter, now sported tender new buds only beginning to unfurl as velvety leaves. The earth beneath them is damp and fragrant with life. He wonders as to the animals that no doubt roam the forest in the wake of this rejuvenated world, reborn in the light and the warmth of the sun. Squirrels traversing tree limbs in search of long-buried acorns, foxes emerging from their dens with their precious kits, songbirds building their nests for families that will soon arrive. Perhaps a wolf, raising his nose to the air to scent the change it carries.

Aria lays a calm hand at his elbow. It gently pulls him back into himself, draws him from the nature that surrounds them. When he meets her eyes they are bright as the sun in the sky, brilliant green and sparkling with an eagerness he recognizes. As though she were keeping a secret and only barely managing to hold it behind her lips.

“Come with me,” she beseeches him. “There is something I would show you.”

He follows her from the castle and into the trees. There is a path upon the ground beneath their feet. It is old, faded and nearly lost to the forest floor from years of disuse. Hector’s eyes wander the woods, taking in the wonders they offer. A butterfly dances in the dappled sunlight. A pair of deer bolt as he passes by, no doubt startled by his own gait rather than Aria’s light footed one. Distracted as he is, he nearly misses it when she comes to a stop. She grasps at his fingers, asking for his attention as he halts beside her.

Before them, in a charming clearing in the middle of the woods, loom the ruins of the Belmont family estate. The house that must have once stood here had no doubt been impressive, even if now it was little more than a crumbling skeleton. Nature had slowly been re-staking its claim over the place; there were vines of greedy ivy and morning glory climbing up the remains of long-scorched walls, now more in pieces than they were intact. Hector admittedly does not know much of what had transpired in this place. He knew that the Belmonts were a renowned lineage of hunters, the centuries-old bane of all night creatures and enemies of humanity. He also knew that at some point, they had been excommunicated from the church, but not what for or how long ago. A while, if the state of the manse was anything to go by. Apparently, there had been at least one who survived the destruction. One Belmont that had managed to aid in killing _ Dracula. _

Aria leads him through the rubble. Hector navigates over and around all the debris, carefully watching his step. They pass by what he believes might be the entrance to the archives below, and as Aria continues her trek he nearly draws her attention to it. The urge to explore the trove of knowledge beneath them has been eating at him for _ weeks. _As she slips through a doorless archway of decaying mortar, he closes his mouth. If it were not the underground library she meant to show him, then what could it be?

He catches up to her at the back of the house. She grins at him from the middle of what had undoubtedly at one point in time been a meticulously maintained estate garden. Much of the architecture is still in place despite the years of neglect. Rows of once-flowering bushes that Hector cannot identify, not gnarled and wild as they are in this rush of spring. Some plants are all but dead, curled brown and lifeless amongst a multitude of different weeds. Some yet carry stubborn, determined buds on their branches. Whether they will manage to come to full bloom or not, Hector cannot say.

Aria kneels at the foot of one such bush, one hand raising to delicately inspect a precious young blossom, its petals still curled tightly closed. Hector lowers himself beside her. She hums, her voice a sweet accompaniment to the birdsong whistling through the trees. At the sound, the leaves of the plant seem to ripple before his very eyes. Almost as though they were dancing to the pleasant melody as she gives voice to it. Aria’s fingertips shimmer against the greenery, and the bud between them begins to timidly unfurl. Hector watches, bewitched, as the flower blooms before them.

It is a rose. A beautiful, delicately blush pink rose, dusted at the tips with darker magenta. At once, the fragrance of the flower surrounds them. Hector breathes it in, sweet and heady in his mended lungs.

“It will take some time, and no small amount of work.” Aria presses her nose to the velvety petals of the rose. She inhales, and a dreamy smile blankets her lips. Hector doesn’t think she’s ever looked more beautiful. More at home. “But I think we should be able to breathe some life back into this garden. What do you say?”

He knew, even before she had given voice to the question, that he would never be able to deny her anything.

* * *

There is an unholy din coming from his kitchen.

Alucard had only just passed by the door, the afternoon’s mail in hand. He meant to sort through the letters in his study but the muffled string of groans from the other side catches his ear. Immediately curious, he abandons the thought of answering his correspondence to investigate. The kitchen door swings open on quiet hinges, and the sight that greets him is… not what he was expecting.

His father’s former forgemaster stands stooped over the table in the middle of the room. His hair has been swept out of his face, which is dusty in patches with flour. In fact, the table itself is dusty with flour. The whole room, even. Hector is flanked at both sides by bowls, wooden spoons, and various ingredients. Flour, obviously, as well as a bottle of olive oil and a bag of salt. In the center of his workspace lies an unassuming sheet of thin, pale dough that he is currently attempting to tame with a rolling pin. If the expression on his face is anything to go by, he is having little luck. Cezar lazily watches his master work, sprawled out over a soft, old blanket put down in the corner. At the sight of Alucard his one good ear perks up, tail eagerly beginning to wag.

“Is everything all right?” Alucard asks tentatively. Hector raises his head to look at him, blinking owlishly.

“Yes,” he reluctantly answers. He straightens, angling his body as though to block Alucard’s view of whatever it is he is doing. “Just… trying my hand at a little baking this afternoon.”

“Oh?” At the potential indication he is not entirely wanted, Alucard steps fully into the room. He cranes his neck to better see what Hector is so stealthily trying to hide. “I didn’t realize you were an accomplished pâtissier.”

“I… well, not exactly.” He chuckles nervously as Alucard draws closer. “I’m actually something of an amateur.”

“I see.” Alucard briefly regards the stack of letters he holds. His eyes flicker from them to the dough beneath Hector’s hands, as though deliberating which seemed more worthy of his time.

He tosses his mail into the seat of a wooden chair.

“Would you like assistance?” he asks politely. “You seem a touch overwhelmed.”

Hector sighs at that. He turns to face Alucard, leaning his hip against the table. Alucard barely stops himself from smiling at the smear of flour that streaks itself across the waist of his trousers. “Well, in truth this was supposed to be somewhat of a secret. Or a surprise.”

Alucard slowly stills, having been in the middle of rolling his sleeves up and over his arms. He lifts one regal brow. “A surprise?”

“For you. I wanted to thank you for caring for Cezar in my absence.” Hector’s eyes fall wistfully to the little dog in the corner. Cezar rolls happily on to his back, wriggling to and fro amidst the wrinkled blanket. It makes him smile. “It is reassuring to know that he was not alone. In fact, he seems quite fond of you.”

“I should hope so,” Alucard says amiably. “With the amount of fetch I have had to play these past few months, I expected to curry at least some favor with him.”

Hector throws him an apologetic wince. “The thing with reanimated pets: they don’t tire as easily.”

“You’ve had others?”

“I have. Ever since I was a boy.” He dusts his fingers liberally with flour and begins tugging at the edges of the dough. Alucard goes to the sink to wash his hands. “It was how I initially discovered my gift.”

The image of the little boy Hector must have been surrounded by a collection of undead and decaying pets comes to mind. Alucard dries his hands on a clean towel, slowly approaching the table to get another good look. “You must be rather fond of animals.”

“I am. They are simpler than people. They do things because it is simply in their nature, whereas people can be… unpredictable.” He plucks idly at a dried piece of dough that has crusted over with flour. “There is comfort in that, knowing a thing will act in accordance with its nature. Even if we as humans might find it savage, or wild.”

Alucard thinks this is the most he might have heard Hector speak since he’d clawed his way to waking that night so many weeks ago. It grants him a better understanding of the way he views the world. For example, why he would bake something for Alucard as thanks for looking after his undead dog, while making no mention as to the saving of his own life.

“So,” Alucard posits, leaning over the table. “What exactly is it you are making?”

Hector sighs. “This is _ supposed _ to be phyllo pastry. I am having difficulty in rolling it out.”

“You’ve made this before?”

“Once or twice, when I was small.” Hector once again takes up the wooden pin and slowly begins an attempt to smooth out the pastry. “I had a grandmother who would let me help her. She used to make yards of it.”

“So this is her recipe.”

“Not quite. She died when I was very young, and my mother never wanted me in her kitchen.” Hector tilts his head towards a book on the counter. It is a rather lengthy looking collection of baking recipes. “I found that in the library.”

“I’m not familiar with phyllo,” Alucard admits. He helps Hector lift the dough, rotating it so it could be more evenly flattened. “What is it used for?”

“It’s supposed be very sheer and delicate. Once it’s completely rolled out, it should be, as the saying goes, thin enough to read the bible through. I wanted to make a sort of pie, with a filling of cheese and greens. It is called _ spanakopita. _”

“Ah.” Alucard is intrigued. His mother had made sure he was able to feed himself, but he would hardly call himself an experienced cook. The concept sounded simple enough, but if the state of the pastry was anything to go by it could hardly be so straightforward.

It takes them the better part of an hour to fully roll out and pull the pastry to the desired thinness. In the end it is spotted here and there with small tears, tiny holes marring the otherwise sheer expanse of pale dough. Hector frets over the slight imperfections, but Alucard is transfixed by what they’ve managed to accomplish. He holds a portion of the pastry up to the light, fascinated by how it manages to filter through the painstakingly developed gluten.

Hector has prepared the filling ahead of time. It sits in a separate bowl near the stove, and Alucard peers inside to take a look. The aroma of fresh greens, grassy goat’s cheese, and bright lemon juice wafts over him.

“There were some ingredients I was unable to source so I was pressed to… improvise.” Hector nervously wrings his hands together. “I couldn’t get ahold of spinach or feta, so I opted for chard and plain goat’s cheese. And the walnuts were originally supposed to be pine nuts.”

“It smells fine enough,” he reassures him.

They top the filling with their pastry and place it into the oven to bake. In the meantime, Hector begins the work of clearing up the mess they’ve made. Alucard pulls a bench scraper from a drawer somewhere and makes to clear the table of flour. He remembers his mother doing the same whenever she’d baked. He remembers being small, straining on his toes to peer over the edge of the table at whatever it was she was making. Bread, usually, or biscuits. There was a simple little pastry she would make for him on special occasions like holidays, or his birthday. _ Mucenici, _they had been called. They were always twisted into little figure eights, drenched in honey syrup and dusted with crushed, toasted walnuts.

As Alucard disposes of the used flour he’s collected in a bowl, he idly wonders if his mother’s recipe is hidden away somewhere in this kitchen.

The _ spanakopita _ takes another hour to bake through. The two of them spend that time milling about at the table, Hector leafing through the recipe book and Alucard looking boredly through his letters. More patients to see later that week, though nothing entirely serious.

A comfortable silence settles over them as they read. Alucard slips subtle glances at Hector, engrossed as he is in his book. The past weeks have leant him much in the way of recovery; he looks less like a cadaver now and more like a man. The cough has all but subsided, and Alucard had taken him off of the antibiotics only days earlier. Alucard watches his eyes as they scan the pages, his thumb brushing gently over his bottom lip. It baffles him, he thinks, that this man, the same man benignly hunched over a book of recipes in the warm afternoon sunlight pouring through the window of his mother’s kitchen, had once been at the top of his father’s chain of command. Alucard takes in the borrowed clothes, the loose curls of hair falling into his eyes and the flour dusted hands, and does not know what to make of him. He thinks of Carmilla, thinks of the broken and dying husk of a man that had been delivered to his door, and a sour, indignant hatred burns low in the pit of his stomach.

It startles him.

When their hour is up, and the pie finally pulled from the oven, the room is flooded with the smell of it: molten cheese and roasted nuts, all encased in a layer of delightfully crisp, brown pastry. They are both too impatient to wait for it to sit the allotted extra half hour, far too eager to see the fruits of their labor. Alucard cuts for them a small slice each, spearing a forkful for himself. He blows cool air over it to ward off some of the steam. As he moves to place the bite into his mouth, Hector abruptly stops him.

“Wait!” he says suddenly, reaching out a hand as though to intercept. “There’s garlic in the filling. I completely forgot. God, I very nearly fed Dracula’s son garlic—”

Before he can finish the thought, Alucard places the fork in his mouth and takes his interrupted bite. Hector watches, stunned, his eyes round as dinner plates. Alucard considers the flavor as it washes over his palate. It is actually quite pleasant. He swallows politely, wiping at the corner of his mouth with a clean kitchen towel.

“I’m rather fond of garlic,” he says to Hector. He cannot help the amused smirk tugging at his lips. “In fact, I think it could use just a little more.”

Hector tries the _ spanakopita _ himself, and to Alucard’s disappointment his face falls as he chews. “It is not right,” he says at last. “Not how I remember it, at least. I should have known interchanging the ingredients would not work as I’d assumed. The goat’s cheese is too sharp, and the walnuts—”

“Hector, it is perfectly palatable.”

The man falls silent at the utterance of his name, And Alucard realizes it is the first time he has ever called him by it. The silence that fills the space between them feels weighty. Important. Alucard anxiously shifts his weight.

“Feta is a brined cheese, is it not?” he asks. Hector nods slowly. “It simply needs a pinch more salt, then. Other than that, it is a well made dish. Thank you.”

“I… you’re welcome.”

As Hector’s eyes fall back to his plate, Alucard cannot help but notice the pleased, satisfied smile that blankets his lips. He is taken by surprise at the rush of warmth the sight instills in him. There is a stubborn patch of flour still pressed into Hector’s cheek, and before he can think better of it he is reaching to brush it away. He manages to stop himself just in time. Hector gives him a questioning look.

“You have flour on your face,” he explains, touching his own cheek to mirror where it is. “Here.”

“Oh.” Embarrassed, Hector quickly moves to wipe it away. He misses entirely. “Is it gone?” he asks.

Alucard grins. “Yes,” he lies.

* * *

The Belmont archives below the estate are _ massive. _ An entire dynasty’s efforts to preserve the knowledge pertaining to the darkest of Earth’s creatures, and it had lain beneath their feet the entire time. Hector understood that it was an enormous collection, had heard second hand accounts from both Iri and Aria about the mysteries that lurked amongst its contents, but until he is finally permitted down amongst their depths, his perception of the sheer size was modest. As he descends the long, battered staircases, his eyes sweeping out over the dimly lit labyrinth of shelves, it is _ overwhelming_. He has spent many an hour in Castlevania’s libraries. While there were many, none of them could hope to match the Belmont trove in sheer volume.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Aria asks him, her eyes lit with an eager sheen. Hector simply does not have the capacity to answer. No, he has never seen anything quite like this in all his life. Not during his simple existence in Rhodes, not in his time spent on the road, and not within the enigmatic walls of Dracula’s castle.

Iri seems to have fashioned herself a research hub in some drawn off corner, scrolls of vellum surrounded by stacks upon stacks of books. As Hector peers closer to get a look at their contents, the text sprawled over them baffles him. It is written in a strange language and a pretty, flowing script that he cannot quite comprehend. The words almost appear to warp on the page as his eyes follow them, and just as he thinks he is on the cusp of recognizing them the symbols seem to shimmer and move. It is unlike anything he has ever read in his life.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asks her, trying to blink away the dizzying imprint of the writing.

“Mercantile records,” Iri answers. She reaches for an open book next to his arm, chewing thoughtfully at her bottom lip. “Black market trade routes. We’ve made significant progress since we first ventured down here, as we started with practically nothing but…” A weary sigh breaks the air between them. “This place is vast. There is so much to sort through, and not all of it is useful. We’ve only managed to get through maybe a few sections since Alucard let us down here.”

Hector eyes the myriad of tomes stacked all around them. His gaze flickers to the rest of the archives, their towering shelves and dusty displays more than a little intimidating. “Would you like help?” he offers.

“Oh no.” Iri shakes her head. “Unless, of course, you happen to be fluent in Sylvan?” 

Hector looks back at her scrolls, rife with letters that liked to rearrange themselves on the page. “Unfortunately, I am not.”

She smiles fondly at him. “That is kind of you to offer, but I—”

“She prefers to work alone,” Aria calls to him from one of the upper levels, leaning excitedly over the wooden railing. Hector watches as she makes for the stairs. “As my sister, she usually has little choice but to accept my help on most days. Since _ you _are here, though, Hector…” she trails off, finishing her descent with a dainty little hop “I find myself in need of someone to accompany me in exploring this trove.”

Aria offers Hector her hand and he takes it, allowing himself to be led off in the direction of a cluster of tall shelves. Iri calls after them, reminding them to be careful, but the warning falls to the wayside as the prospect of getting his hands on the books here grows closer.

They do not have to wander far. The collection is moderately well organized and Hector makes note to peruse the index once he gets the chance. The maze of bookcases draws them in, like moths to a flame, and as Hector passes volumes with titles in languages he cannot even _ recognize, _much less read, as they meander past display cases full of relics, trophies, and skeletons of specimens he hardly knows how to identify, his heart begins to beat wildly between his ribs. His mind whirls in a frenzy of possibilities, and when Aria finally settles upon a section of shelves he simply starts choosing a few books at random to pluck from them. One is an encyclopedia of magical atmospheric phenomena. Another describes, in 1400 pages of great detail, the intricacies of common household spells for tidying up. He is particularly interested in a fascinating bestiary he comes across that catalogs the varieties of kelpie species in the lochs of Scotland. He considers bringing it into the castle with him before remembering that Alucard had specifically requested, while he was welcome to look as much as he liked, that he not remove any of the collection from the archives themselves.

They must pass hours there like that: drifting in that liminal space underneath the world, the dim light of torches muddling the passage of time as well as they aid in stalling the degradation of the specimens they illuminate. Hector loses himself in his bestiary. Aria similarly buries herself in a book he himself probably could not read, and the two of them sit in companionable silence flavored by the musty, earthy smell of centuries old pages sealed in their bindings. By the time Iri’s voice calls to them from somewhere close by, his joints ache with the stiffness that gathered as he’d spent the day huddled upon the floor. Hector reluctantly closes his book as he stands. He reaches a hand out for Aria.

“Is it time to go already?” She pouts, but takes hold of his fingers all the same. As she rises to her feet, she lets out a small yawn. Hector suspects it must be later in the day, perhaps even past sundown.

“What is that you’ve found?” he asks her, gaze flickering to the spine of her book. She lights up at the question.

“It is an entire tome written in _ Dravanian. _Can you believe it?” Aria hugs it close to her chest, as though it were the most precious discovery she had ever made. “I cannot say for certain whether there has ever been another written record of it.”

“Is it difficult to transcribe?” He is genuinely curious, being unfamiliar with Dravanian or its origins. She chuckles to herself.

“Dragons can hardly write books now, can they, Hector?”

His mouth falls slightly open. He ponders the logistics of that as Aria wanders ahead. “Dragons?” he parrots, slightly dumb struck. He jogs to keep up.

“Aye, _ dragons.” _ She opens it again, idly tracing her fingers over the text as she walks. “I am desperate to learn how this book was written, and just how long ago. There is an author’s name, but I do not recognize it.”

“Perhaps Alucard would know?” he suggests, and she sighs wistfully.

“He _ rarely _ comes down here. I doubt he would have much in the way of an explanation.” She seems disappointed by the declaration. “Someone would have to have studied them, built up trust with them. Dragons are notoriously reclusive, and they rarely welcome strangers in their midst. Much less a _ mortal _—”

Her eyes land upon something between the shelves and suddenly, Aria falls silent. The book closes gently in her hands. She stops in her tracks, slowly turning to face the wall, and Hector’s brow furrows at the strange pause.

“Aria?”

He calls out to her, but she does not respond. She remains transfixed by whatever has hold of her attention, all the mirth having drained from her face. Unnerved by her odd behavior, Hector takes a step closer. He means to get a good look at whatever is hidden amongst the bookcases, but a tiny, wordless whimper slips past her barely parted lips. It stops him where he stands. Her book falls to the floor just as Hector rounds the corner.

Against the wall, protected by a large, glass case, hangs a plaque of dark and glossy wood. Mounted upon it is a set of great, glimmering wings. They remind Hector strongly of a butterfly’s wings. Nearly ten feet in their span, they are painted in a dazzling array of orange hues with great loping borders of black spotted through with white. The way the iridescent scales throw the feeble light of the torches makes him long to see them in the sun. The sheer size of them takes his breath away as he imagines what they must look like in flight. At the bottom of the wood sits a placard, and as Hector peers in to read it the hair on the back of his neck prickles.

_ Kingdom of Bohemia, 1209. Faerie. _

Aria’s hand flies to her mouth in horror. She _ keens, _and the sound flays his nerves all but raw. Hector tries to pull her away, tugging insistently at her arm but she will not be moved. Her eyes remained glued to the trophy behind the glass. His stomach churns. It is exactly that, he realizes. A trophy. Like antlers hanging above a mantle, or the skinned hide of a bear in front of the hearth. Gloating proof of another crippled Faerie, mounted and dated as a proud conquest.

He does not hear Iri call to them again. He does not hear her footsteps as she searches for them in their answering silence. When she does find them, Aria frozen stock still in terror and he with his fingers clutching desperately at her elbow, she spares a glance at the glass in front of them and _ lunges. _In a flurry of movement Iri twists her sister away from the case, dragging Hector along with her, and wraps her in her arms. She holds Aria’s face against her shoulder, as though trying to obscure her vision. Hector is morbidly reminded of the scars he’d seen at her back. The same scars that must cover Aria’s.

Iri holds on to Aria for a long time, the both of them trembling against each other as they vehemently turn their backs on the trophy on the wall. Hector leans listlessly against the closest bookshelf, arms crossed vulnerably across his chest. In the same case, before he’d looked away he had seen a sparse collection of skulls. They’d been divested of their lower jaws, but in the maxilla, nestled in the neat upper rows of teeth had been fangs. No doubt just a few of the hundreds hidden amongst these walls, Hector thinks he now can posit a guess as to why Alucard rarely ventures into the Belmont archives.

* * *

His father had been wrong, Alucard thinks.

Obviously, about many things. Dracula had been immortal, not infallible. The more time he spends among the villagers, the more he understands the depths of his father’s madness to see them all wiped from the Earth. Every day he passes in his mother’s laboratory is another day comprehending his father’s disregard for her life’s work. And, as he immerses himself in the frantic writings of a heartsick, dying old man, the more he realizes that Dracula had been wrong about Hector.

Alucard had resented his father’s forgemasters for many, many months after his death. It was anguish to know that, while he still bore the scar of Dracula’s fury upon the heart that beat with blood his father gave him, here were these two humans, _ strangers, _ that he’d nearly regarded as sons. He’d _ trusted _ them in the way he hadn’t trusted his own. Precious months Alucard would have given anything for, time to spend grieving the loss of his mother with the only other man on Earth whose love for her rivaled his own. Dracula had ripped that from him and handed it to these two with nary a thought to the heartbroken boy he’d chased from his own home.

A child, his father calls Hector, in a man’s body. Still the child he’d once been, years ago and leagues away, incapable of understanding why he was cast out by those who were supposed to love him. The innocent, simple way he viewed the world made him easy to convince. Easy to lie to.

Alucard looks at Hector, and he cannot be sure he sees a child. Naïve at times, perhaps a bit idealistic. Maybe he had been more so before Carmilla had sunk her claws into him. Certainly not innocent, though, in neither his sins nor his suffering.

And there is nothing simple about him.

Hector may be candid in his emotions, wearing every heart he’s ever had on his sleeve, but there is so much more to him than his father had let on. He is remarkably brilliant. He would never have been permitted to set foot in the castle unless that much were true. Alucard himself had faced down the creatures forged at Hector’s hand, and while there was no denying the deadliness of his creations, neither was there denying the fire of life that had raged within them. There were not many alive that possessed the talent to call themselves forgemasters, much less who were capable of that.

Alucard watches subtly as the weeks pass by. He watches the expressions flicker over Hector’s features during their evening meals, the four of them together in the warmth of his mother’s kitchen. He makes note of every laugh, frown, grimace, and smile as the faerie sisters and occasionally Alucard himself manage to coax them out of him. He catches him reading in the afternoons, enraptured in an unrivaled focus on whatever the pages offer him. He can hear him wandering the halls on some restless nights, hear the beating of his heart from stories below as clearly as if it were the one in his own chest.

This man, not a child but a _ man, _intrigues him. Alucard recognizes the fascination for what it is. He is not a fool. His had been a lonely existence in this castle, this grave of his father and his mother both. His days had been filled with the constant reminder of what he’d lost, and even in the wake of Sypha and Trevor there was little to meaningfully occupy him. And then fate had deemed it necessary to drop three uninvited guests on his doorstep and give him a purpose.

And so that is what compels him to rip the boards from the door to his boyhood bedroom. Alucard strips the nails from the wood with the clawed end of a hammer, tossing it all aside to open the door.

It is the same as he’d left it. The same pictures hanging from the same walls. The same toys staring blankly from their boxes. The same notes and books sitting upon the same shelves. The same twin bed frame missing a post. He moves quickly, not eager to linger, until he finds what he is looking for and then he is gone on his quest. Armed with his find, he makes for the little sitting room with another bottle tucked under his arm, and at the sight of the fire beyond the open door he knocks idly against the wood.

Hector’s head lifts from whatever tome he’s found himself now, and at the sight of Alucard he gives him a tight-lipped, polite smile.

“Good evening,” he greets, curled as he is in the armchair. Alucard holds up his bottle.

“May I join you?”

“Of course.” Hector offers him a good-natured glance of his eyes. “It is your castle, is it not?” Alucard smirks to himself, hidden behind the white gold curtain of his hair.

“Indeed it is.”

Hector quietly watches him pour them two glasses, each filled with two fingers’ worth of amber-colored malt liquor. “What is this?” he asks as Alucard hands it to him.

“Whisky,” is the answer. “Have you had it before?”

“No.” Hector takes a delicate sniff over the top of his glass. His brows nearly rise to his hairline at the scent. “That is… potent.”

“Best to drink it slowly.”

Hector takes an experimental sip, and Alucard has to stifle his grin when his face twists into a grimace. He tries to swallow down an involuntary cough and is mostly successful. “A bit harsher than the brandy.”

“Yes.” He allows Hector a moment to catch his breath before his next question, biding his time as he sips his own drink. The burn of it as it trickles down his throat is satisfying. “Did you enjoy your work as my father’s forgemaster?”

That seems to catch him off guard. Hector clears his throat. “I did. My work was my life. It was all I cared about.” There is such a palpable note of sadness in the words. Alucard does not know what to make of it. He gently presses the crystal into his bottom lip.

“If you could, would you take it up again?”

Hector regards him coldly over the rim of his glass. Alucard immediately regrets what he’s asked. It is suspicion that he finds in the way Hector stiffens in his chair. Fear. “Why?”

“Hector, it is only a question. I meant nothing by it; I was simply curious.”

While Alucard is uncertain just how reassuring the man in front of him finds his words, Hector has at least seemed to calm. His gaze falls to the depths of his glass, and he won’t look Alucard in the eye. It is the same acrid twinge of shame he’d seen once before, the only other time Hector had ever hinted as to what Carmilla or her men subjected him to. “I… don’t know,” he says finally. “When… Carmilla kept me chained to the forge…” All the mirth has been drained from him. “I don’t think I would. It would not be the same. Every creature I made for her… It felt like I was dying. Maybe I wished I was.”

_ Chained. _

A sudden flare of disgust burns in his breast. The now all too familiar bitterness of hatred settles achy and feverish behind his teeth, and when he next speaks the softness of his voice startles even him.

“You are not a prisoner here,” he reminds Hector. Hector’s eyes finally meet his again and they are so brightly blue, so genuinely hopeful that what Alucard says is true. “This castle is not a cage, and I am not your jailor.”

He cannot tell if Hector believes him, but he nods as though he understands. Something deep and heavy sits at the back of Alucard’s throat. He tries to swallow it, but it lingers, even beyond the burn of the whisky. As he twists the crystal in his fingers, he recognizes it for what it is and the world seems to close in around him.

He is grieving for this man. For what he has lost, and just how much of him cannot be recovered.

Alucard blinks back the sudden, confusing tears that prickle at the corners of his eyes. He exhales, attempting to regain some semblance of normalcy to his composure, and reaches for what he has brought.

“I have a gift for you.” The sound of shuffling papers breaks the tension in the room. Hector looks curiously at him, taking another cautious sip of his drink. Alucard pulls a brown, moleskine folder and a leather bound book into his lap. “My father’s journals allude to your being trained in matter sciences. You were an alchemist by trade, yes?”

“I was.” Hector huffs out a self-deprecating chuckle. “That seems almost a lifetime ago.”

Alucard holds his hand out to Hector, offering him both the folder and the book. Hector blinks at him.

“What is this?”

“It is a chemistry book. It was mine, when I was a student under my father. These are my notes.” Hector leans slowly forward in his chair. He hesitantly takes the proffered book, and Alucard smiles kindly at him. “Truth be told, I could use some help in mixing medicines for people in the village. And, if what my father has said about you in his writings is true, I trust you’ll make a quick study.”

Hector looks over the book. He handles it very gently. Almost reverently. “This was yours?”

“It was. And now it is yours, if you want it.” He crosses his legs, leaning back against the sofa. “Simply a passing thought I had, if you were looking for a way to pass the time.”

“I…” Hector holds the book close to his chest. It takes a moment for him to find the words, as though he were at a loss for what to say. “I would _ cherish _ the opportunity. Thank you, Alucard.”

“... You are welcome.”

With that, Alucard quickly finishes his drink, knocking back the strongly flavored liquor as though it were merely water. Hector watches in something akin to awe. The glass in his own hand is still decidedly full.

“Keep it for as long as you like.” Alucard stands. He smoothes out the wrinkles that have settled into the legs of his trousers. “With that, I shall bid you goodnight. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate in asking.”

Hector smiles cheerfully at him. “I won’t. Goodnight.”

Alucard quickly leaves him, striding from the room to make for his study, and if there is a subtle tremor in his hands, or a flutter that makes itself known in his belly, he very determinedly _ ignores it. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be sure to leave a comment with some feedback!!! I love to read them!!!!!!!!!


	15. Part XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I hope you guys like this chapter. I actually had to pull out my old biochem book for this and made myself mad trying to remember all of that.
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her new fic [Enthralled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496005/chapters/53753908). It's fairly new and definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

_ Thwack. _

The garden behind the Belmont manse is not what it was the last time Alucard deigned to pay it a visit. It looks less like a graveyard for once proudly flowering plants and a little more like a flourishing springtime landscape. Where once had been flower beds overrun with invasive species of wild weeds now stood carefully tended rows of structured plant life. Alucard thinks back to all the times he’d caught Hector and Aria knocking dirt loose from their boots outside the castle, thick gloves caked in soil and earth-covered spades clutched in their hands. He had wondered what it was they had been up to. Now, eyes sweeping over their hard won progress, he knows.

_ Thwack. _

Speaking of Aria, the girl kneels leisurely at his side in the grass. She has collected a growing pile of daisies plucked from the lush carpet of grass that surrounds them. The flowers are currently cradled in the improvised apron she has made of her skirt. Her fingers gently sort through them as she closely inspects their stems. Alucard idly watches her as she works, humming sweetly all the while. He has since come to learn that humming or singing was simply part of the Faerie condition. At least, he thinks, it must be, given the amount of music that seems to fill Castlevania these days. He could hardly complain; they have beautiful voices.

_ Thwack. _

Alucard lazily turns his gaze to the spectacle before them, reclined as he is amongst the warm, green grass. Nearby, Iri’s voice breaks short and concise in the late morning sunshine. He watches Hector’s shoulders drop, the wooden practice sword falling tiredly at his side. Iri crosses the distance between to calmly take his arm. She adjusts his stance, tries to coax his hands into the correct maneuvers with her own. Her voice is not scolding; it is merely instructive as she explains what it is she is doing. Alucard can suddenly see her as the Captain he knows she had been once, however long ago. The precise way she coaches Hector’s movements, the patience he hadn’t considered her capable of as she waits and watches for him to get it right. He wonders just how many soldiers she’s trained in this exact way, and over how many hundreds of years.

_ Thwack. _

Hector, on the other hand, is not a soldier. Alucard can tell none of this is easy for him. His feet are awkward as he strives to do as he is instructed, his arms unsure of what they are meant to do. He grips the pommel of the practice sword like his life depends on it. Alucard knows the feeling; he easily recalls his first fencing lessons as a very young boy. He’d been so eager at first, but the easy grace he now calls his own had not always been there. It had been cultivated through years of practice and dedication. As Alucard watches Hector, he is unsure if he will ever rise to the status of experienced swordsman, but that is all right. Iri had merely insisted he learn the basics, should the need to defend himself ever arise. With the thought of Carmilla, of Styria still looming over Hector’s psyche like a cloud of locusts, Alucard suspects some day it might.

_ Thwack. _

A small murmur of his name pulls his attention from Iri’s struggling protégé to the young lady beside him. Aria delicately holds her hands out towards him. From her fingers dangles a very dainty, very elegantly crafted crown of daisies. Alucard blinks as he accepts it, admiring the simple beauty of the interwoven flowers.

“Thank you,” he tells her politely. She smiles daintily, watching with a gentle satisfaction as he reaches up to place it around his head. She helps him to settle it in place among the golden waves of his hair. “Well?” he asks, “Do I do it justice?”

“Hm.” Aria tilts her head as she considers him in his new floral tiara. “It fits well enough, and daisies are a worthy enough flower, but… It is a shame that we are a few weeks too late for daffodils. I think those would suit you more.”

“A terrible shame.”

_ Thwack. _

A short, bitten off cry of surprise rings out amidst the tranquility. Alucard looks away from Aria just in time to see Hector stumble, barely managing to catch himself on one knee as he goes down. Iri bears down on him. The blunt edge of her wooden sword swings forth, stopping just at Hector’s throat. Alucard sees him flinch, can hear him panting from halfway across the garden. His chest heaves as he realizes whatever mistake has just cost him his life. Iri allows him a moment, both fleeting and heavy, to realize that he is dead. She pulls the practice blade away, reaching out to offer him her hand instead. Hector wearily takes it. Iri hauls him to his feet, and he spends a few seconds doubled over in hopes of catching his breath.

“That should conclude the show for today,” she calls out to them. Aria gathers the rest of her daisies in her hands, standing to meet her sister as she and Hector approach them. Alucard remains sprawled out as he is in the grass.

“Iri and I are going on a walk,” the younger sister informs them. She playfully tucks a flower behind Hector’s ear. “Would either of you like to join us?”

“I think not,” Hector huffs. He is still fairly out of breath, a fine sheen of sweat glossing his skin. “I’ll join Alucard back inside. I’d like to discuss a question I had, about that book? And…” He fidgets uncomfortably at the wide, dampened collar of his shirt. “I would very much like a bath.”

Immediately, two pairs of double-irised eyes lower to him. Iri’s brows lift in a curious, suspicious expression. Aria hides half of a smile behind her flowers. Both of them look as though they know something he himself does not. Alucard simply gazes impassively back, unsure if he cares for the insinuation.

They go their separate ways, the two faeries headed for their woodland walk and the two of them making for the interior of the castle. Hector continues to pluck disdainfully at his clothes. He makes a face as he attempts to re-roll the sleeves that had fallen in his exertion.

“You have improved,” Alucard informs him, mirthfully watching him.

Hector scoffs. “It hardly feels like an improvement. Especially when I spend more time on the ground than I do my own feet.”

“It will simply take time.”

“I’m hardly a warrior, Alucard.”

“It does not take a warrior to pick up a sword. I’ve seen peasants and farmers make do with pitchforks and shovels, and no former Captain of the Queensguard to train them; if they are capable of holding their own in a skirmish, then, I believe, so are you.”

Hector falls quiet, as though he were mulling over Alucard’s words. The great, hulking doors of Castlevania open to their master and the two of them cross the threshold inside. Hector sighs at the blessedly cool air that greets them.

“I had asked originally if she would instruct me in archery. Have you ever seen Iri shoot?” Alucard shakes his head. “It is… a sight to behold. But, she told me swordplay would yield more results in a shorter length of time.”

“Archery does require years and years of study. Never quite got the hang of it, myself. At least not enough to keep up with it.” He watches the crestfallen look settle over Hector’s face. “Perhaps another time.”

Hector’s hand rakes through the sweat damp curls of his hair in an attempt to gather it up off of his neck. He stumbles upon the flower Aria had stealthily placed there. When his eyes next turn Alucard’s way, they linger upon the crown he had nearly forgotten he was wearing. Alucard pretends not to see the relaxed smile that grants him.

“Did Aria make that for you?” Hector asks. Alucard shrugs nonchalantly.

“She did.”

“Hm.” He twirls his own flower between his fingers. “I had not thought you to be fond of daisies.”

“No?” Alucard arches one fine, aristocratic brow. “Well, when the youngest daughter of the Faerie Queen offers you a crown of flowers she has made with her own hands, I expect the polite thing to do would be to wear it.”

Hector’s gait suddenly falls out of line beside him. He stops in his tracks and blinks at Alucard, as though what he has just said has turned the world on its head.

“Sorry, I—_what?” _

Ah.

“You didn’t know.” Alucard tilts his head inquisitively. “They never told you?”

“No!” Hector’s jaw drops. “You’re saying they’re royalty? That they’re… princesses?”

“I’m not sure if that’s the word they would use for it.” Alucard grins, savoring the look of utter shock on his face. “But yes.”

“Oh, god. They’re royalty. They’re royalty and I… Oh.”

“Hector, please calm yourself. If they never thought to tell you themselves, then let’s forget this conversation ever happened.” Alucard halts at the foot of the stairs, planning to part ways for his study. “You wanted to discuss the book I gave you?”

“I… yes.” Hector clears his throat, as though he is attempting to recompose himself. “Give me an hour to bathe and find something clean to wear, and I shall meet you in the library?”

“An hour it is, then.”

With that, Hector leaves him. Alucard watches him go and grins to himself. Hopefully, there would be no consequences in having let the sisters’ secret loose. He takes a full, deep breath. The smell of sunlight and clean, warm sweat lingers in Hector’s wake, and he shudders, catching himself. He tries not to think on the scent as he makes the ascent to the study.

* * *

“You never told me.”

Aria grimaces. Her hands still where they had been intricately braiding her sister’s long, red hair. Iri tilts her head to meet her eyes, sharing some look between them that Hector suspects is not entirely meant for him. He shifts his feet nervously on the carpet of their bedroom.

“How did you find out?” she asks him.

“Alucard mentioned it in passing. He seemed… surprised that I did not already know.”

_ “Cén chaoi a bhfuil a fhios ag Alucard?” _Aria asks her.

_ “Níl a fhios agam.” _ Iri shrugs her shoulders. _ “A athair, b'fhéidir.” _

“Why keep it a secret?” 

“Would you believe me if I said it just never came up?” Iri offers drily. Hector gives her a long-suffering look. “Hector, it is not as though we made a conscious decision not to tell you. It was simply… not necessary to share.”

“Outside of Il Mheg, our heritage really does not mean very much.” Aria ties off Iri’s expertly braided hair, gently laying it over her shoulder. “Especially not here in Wallachia, where there are no faeries anyway. An ordinary person in this country would not know us from a common rainwater sprite.”

Iri laughs at that, and Aria’s answering smile leaves him with a peculiar feeling. Yet another part of their lives, their culture that he has no insight into. He has no idea what a rainwater sprite is, or how one would tell them from the Faerie Queen’s daughters. It slowly occurs to him that despite spending the last few months with these two girls, despite their having saved his life three times over, he cannot say he knows them well. A melancholy pang settles high in his heart at the realization.

“I am not an ordinary person. Or, at least, I had hoped I wasn’t; not to the two of you.”

“Oh.” Aria’s brow furrows as she frets. “Oh, no, Hector. Of course you are not ordinary. You are our friend.”

“You say I am your friend, and yet I know so little about you. Either of you.”

She winces at him guiltily. Iri extends her arm, offering him her hand. Reluctantly, Hector slowly crosses the room to take it. He sits at the edge of their bed, feeling very out of place. It is something he’s been accustomed to for most of his life; never quite feeling as though he entirely belonged with anyone. It aches to feel this way amongst his now two dearest companions. Iri tenderly strokes her thumb along the inner line of his wrist. The touch is soothing. Reassuring.

“What would you like to know, Hector?”

His mind scrambles to decide upon one question. He suddenly has so many. “How old are you?” he asks first. A simple enough one to start out with, he supposes.

“Well…” Aria taps thoughtfully at her chin. “I believe I am nearing 300 years old—”

“298,” Iri corrects her.

“Yes. Which would make you…”

“377 years old.”

The answer surprises him, though Hector suspects it really shouldn’t. He has spent the last year and a half surrounded by immortal, centuries-old creatures of the night. The fact that faeries also live similar lifespans should follow, but Aria and Iri seemed so… young. He has no idea what a juvenile vampire might be like, save for Alucard and he is… different. Aria, on the other hand, looks the part of a young girl and behaves as a young girl would. Iri, while no doubt marked by the life she has lived, seems to be a few years older, but much the same.

“Our turn!”

Before he has the chance to process this new information, they descend upon him. Aria hops up beside him on the bed, crossing her legs primly while Iri flanks him on the other side. Hector blinks at them. He suddenly feels very put on the spot.

“Well? How old are you, Hector?”

“I…” For a moment, he scrambles to answer, fearful he may have forgotten just how old he is. “I am twenty-one,” his brain finally supplies him.

_ “Leanbh,” _Iri snickers. Aria swats playfully at her sister’s arm. Hector opens his mouth to search for his next question, and Iri pokes at his cheek. “Ah, ah! There are two of us: we each get a question.”

“That hardly seems fair.”

“Oh, but it is.” Hector weighs the outcome of arguing with a pair of faeries over what is fair and what is not, and decides the odds are probably stacked against him. “What is… your favorite color?”

“... Blue.”

“Mine is purple.”

“Mine is pink!” Aria giggles. “I think I like this game. Next, please!”

It is now his turn again. “What is your mother like?”

“Iri, but with less of a stick up her back.”

_ “Aria.” _

“‘Tis true! You do so take after her.”

“Our mother is Titania,” Iri tells him. “Queen of the Faeries. And she is old. Far older than Dracula ever was, or any other vampire alive for that matter. Aria has her face.”

“We have the _ same _face.”

“Yes, but you have her nose. And her hair.”

“Do you look like your father?” Hector asks, and she tuts him.

“Those are not the rules.” He has half a mind to argue that he never agreed to these rules, but she soldiers on past any potential protestations. “What book was it you needed to discuss with Alucard earlier this afternoon?”

“It’s nothing,” he answers, and he knows instantly it is the wrong thing to tell her. The two of them both lean in closer, suddenly very invested in what he says next. “A science book; he has offered to teach me chemistry, so that I might help him make medicine for the villagers.”

“How _ interesting.” _

Hector’s face is beginning to feel unnaturally warm. He is blushing, and is not entirely sure as to why. “I would hardly call it interesting. It’s the least I can do to try and repay him after… everything.”

Aria giggles to her sister. _ “Tá sé ag bláthú.” _Though he cannot understand the words Hector thinks he can guess as to the sentiment behind them. He is being teased and, good-natured as it is, the subtlety behind it all is lost on him. It does nothing to assuage the heat rising to his cheeks.

He thinks he is done with this game for now.

“I’m feeling rather tired after this morning.” He stands. “I think I’ll retire to my room for a while. I’ll see the two of you at dinner?”

Without waiting for an answer, Hector leaves their bedroom to the sound of Aria’s disappointed cry, followed by an impetuous whine of, “But it was my turn…”

The blush persists long after he returns to the comfort of his own room.

* * *

The garden is in full bloom.

As Alucard makes the walk, up the path through the woods and around the skeleton of the Belmont house, he idly fiddles with the strap of his satchel. The sun on this morning is beginning to lean more on the warm side, more evidence that Wallachia is in the full throes of late spring. The garden is merely a reflection of that.

He finds Hector tucked away in one corner on his own, his head bowed between a beautiful pair of rose bushes. Aria is similarly occupied with her peonies a few yards away, still bashfully hiding their petals. She calls good morning to him as he passes. Hector does not seem to hear them, fixated as he is on his roses. Alucard stops just behind him, boots sounding softly in the grass. When it is clear Hector has failed entirely to notice him, he clears his throat.

Hector at once sits up, knelt as he is in the soil, and turns to face him. He offers Alucard a welcoming smile, one he cannot help but return. “Good morning,” he says cheerfully.

“Good morning.” Alucard’s gaze sweeps over the flowers nestled in their bushes, more robust and exquisite than any he has ever seen in all his life. To think, just weeks before this garden had been little more than a lost cause.

“What brings you out here today?” Hector asks him, standing from where he was knelt in the grass. “Usually you’re on your way to the village by now.” Alucard opens his mouth to answer, but as Hector reaches to wipe the slight sheen of sweat from his brow, his eyes follow and he falls silent.

There, over the bridge of his nose and the swell of his cheekbones, are freckles. Newly earned freckles, no doubt the result of his dedicated hours in the sun tending to his roses. Faint as they are against the rest of his skin, the sunlight makes them all the more apparent. They dust Hector’s sun kissed face in a charming array that Alucard knows had not been there before. They are pleasing to look at, and remarkably distracting, as he is quickly learning.

“Alucard?” Hector calls to him when he fails to respond, and Alucard blinks at the sound of his name.

“Yes,” he finally says, “I find myself in need of a rose this morning. I understand you have an abundance here?”

“Indeed we do.” Hector looks about the plants, silently searching for an adequate one. “While you may have any you like, I have a few in mind that stand out to me, personally.”  
  
He pauses for a moment, a shy, nervous look befalling his face. He chews thoughtfully at his lip, white teeth all the more brilliant against the sun warmed hue of his skin. “... Is this a gift for someone?”

“It is, in fact. There is a patient of mine, an older woman whose family knew my mother. She’s been under the weather as of late and I thought a flower might help to cheer her up.”

“Ah.” If Alucard did not know better, he would say that had been a tiny flash of relief in Hector’s eyes. “Well follow me; I’m sure we’ll find something.”

They do. In the end, Alucard settles upon a magnificent, cupped bloom. The outer petals are a soft, tender shade of pink while the inner ones in the very center are a buttery yellow. Hector cuts it from the stem with a worn pair of shears, carefully trimming it of its thorns. He hands it to Alucard and the heady scent of it perfumes the air around them. Alucard gingerly wraps it into a silken handkerchief for safekeeping.

“Thank you,” he tells Hector. “I am certain she will love it.”

“Will I see you again tonight?” Hector asks him suddenly. “In the sitting room? There was something else I wanted your insight on. The, er… hydrocarbons?”

“Of course. I will be there, and I shall see if I can’t find another more in depth volume in my father’s personal library. Your book is more of an introductory course, so perhaps it will help to shed some light.”

“I would appreciate that.” Hector offers him another genuine, beautiful smile. Alucard’s fingers tremble against the strap of his satchel. Hector is, just as he had suspected, a voracious learner. He takes to the study of molecules like a fish does to water. It takes him mere weeks to master concepts Alucard’s own young mind had needed months for. He suspects part of it might be due to his previous experience in alchemy, a sort of science in itself drawing heavily upon the same laws and theories as chemistry though not as concise or rigid. It makes him wonder just how much he could have learned with the proper instruction.

“Well,” he says quickly. “I must be going. I shall leave you to your garden.”

He bids Hector a hasty goodbye, as is becoming his habit, and sees himself back down the path. As he walks, he can hear a second gait falling into step behind him, and when he turns he finds a rather concerned looking Iri. For several moments, they simply stare at each other, he with his freshly cut rose in his hand and she with her arms crossed anxiously over her chest.

“Alucard.” His name sounds heavy on her tongue. “Please be careful.”

His heart flutters against his ribs. His eyes widen, fingers clenched over the black leather of his bag. “I beg your pardon?”

“I am asking you to be careful with him.”

“I am… unsure what it is you are implying, and I do not—”

“I am not implying anything.” She holds her hand up to stop his indignant protestations. “I merely know what it is I am seeing, even if he does not yet.”

_ “Iri.” _

“Just be kind to him. Hector deserves someone who is kind to him.”

And with that, she is gone. Alucard stares after her as she marches back towards the Belmont manse, her bare feet padding silently along the forest floor. Blood rushes to his cheeks as her words ring loudly in his ears, and he suddenly feels very short of breath.

It takes him longer than usual to reach Sonia’s house. As he politely offers the rose to Marianna, the old woman is overcome with joy, and he has to physically restrain himself from telling her all about the man who had grown it.

* * *

Hector, curled up in front of the fireplace of the tiny sitting room, one leg folded on the carpet and the other bent close to his chest, groans as he crumples yet another scrap of graphite stained parchment and tosses it into the flames. They greedily consume yet another of his failed attempts to decode hydrocarbon chains, roaring softly in satisfaction. The hour is growing late, and he is growing weary.

Most of the information in Alucard’s book as of yet had been relatively easy for him to grasp. It was similar enough to alchemy that he could catch on quickly, with little instruction. There were concepts on which he occasionally consulted Alucard’s own expertise, and he was always happy to oblige whether with books and parchment or a brief demonstration in the castle’s laboratories. It is much more enlightening at times to observe the phenomena he reads about, whether in another person’s words or as they apply in the material world.

Now though, as Hector exasperatedly rakes his hand through the curls of his hair, he is nearly ready to close his book, put away his notes, and be done for the evening. Alucard had been right; this was proving to be more of a challenge.

A quiet knock at the door tears him from his dilemma, and Hector smiles at the sight of Alucard in the doorway. As per usual, there is a bottle in his hand, but this evening he carries with it two long-stemmed, crystal wine glasses. Under one of his arms is a thick book. He swans slowly into the room, taking in Hector’s hunched form upon the floor, and raises one brow.

“I was going to suggest we share a drink before we start, but…” His eyes flicker to the fire and all the ashes of Hector’s previous efforts within. “I can see you are properly distressed.”

Hector huffs a self-deprecating chuckle. “Is it obvious?”

“Hm.” It is not exactly an answer. Alucard gingerly places the green bottle and glasses to the side, kneeling down beside him by the fire before sprawling himself out on his side. One hand casually supporting his head, he reaches with the other for the open book to pull it towards himself. His long, black robe falls open over his hip, and once again the sight of the jagged scar across his chest greets Hector. This time, he is careful not to stare.

“Did you struggle with these as well?” he asks him, and Alucard offers him a brief glance.

“No,” he says blandly, “but I had a far more competent teacher than you do.” He tugs at the other book, the one he’d brought with him, and thumbs through its pages. “Here. These passages will offer a more in-depth explanation in naming hydrocarbons. Read it.”

Alucard thrusts the open book out to him, and Hector has little choice but to take it. The text is entirely academic; so much so, in fact, that it takes him several minutes to decipher it paragraph by paragraph. Even when he is finished he still feels more muddled than he does informed. He looks to Alucard, and the confusion must be plain on his face because Alucard offers him a reassuring expression.

“When I was learning these, I made myself a checklist. Which clues to look for and in what order.” He picks up Hector’s graphite pencil, a utensil he had marveled at upon first receiving, and taps idly against a blank sheet of parchment. “Do the same. The act of writing it will help you to remember.”

It takes a bit of time, and a little more guidance from Alucard, but Hector manages to draw himself up an outline for breaking down lengthy molecules. Alucard’s own elegant, flowing handwriting marks the page in places next to his own, and Hector admires it as he reads.

“Approach each one with this,” Alucard points delicately at his new checklist, “and eventually it will become second nature. After an appropriate amount of practice, of course. Here.” He steals the pencil, taking a sheet of parchment for himself. Hector watches his hand as he effortlessly sketches out a hydrocarbon chain. As his arm moves, a length of long, blond hair slithers over his shoulder to rest against his exposed collarbone. Hector watches his face, fascinated. When Alucard hands him the page, he takes up his pencil again. “Now: tell me what this molecule is called.”

Hector swallows nervously. He looks at the molecule, then to his checklist. He counts out the longest carbon chain, then identifies the substituents. Numbers each link in the chain. Looking at his list of prefixes, he attempts to assign them where necessary.

“4-ethyl-3… no, 4-ethyl-_ 2…” _

“Yes,” Alucard says encouragingly.

“4-ethyl-2-methylhexane?”

“Exactly.” Alucard nods approvingly. “And the rest of the rules build upon that. In time, you won’t even need the checklist anymore.”

“Thank you, Alucard. That was giving me no end of grief.” While he is pleased with himself at finally having successfully identified and labelled a baffling chain of hydrocarbons, Hector is more than ready to be done with them for the evening. He decisively shuts the dense text Alucard had leant him, handing it back. “Now,” he breathes, “about that drink.”

The glasses, to his surprise, are chilled. A thin coat of condensation has gathered over them in the warmth of the room, and as Alucard pours Hector his glass he appreciates the pale golden color. Alucard holds his own glass up in offering, and Hector timidly meets it with a small _ clink _ that rings in the air between them.

“To what are we toasting?” he asks.

“Your hydrocarbons,” Alucard responds drolly, and takes a long drink.

Hector brings the crystal to his lips and at the first sip, as the wine hits his tongue, he makes a realization. It is familiarly sweet, and delightfully crisp. It is cold in his throat as he swallows, the weak tannins lingering mildly over his palate. He looks to Alucard in surprise to find him intently watching his face, as though he were waiting for something.

“This is the same wine your father served me.”

“The Sauternes.” The tip of Alucard’s index finger taps at the rounded wall of his glass. “I found another bottle in the cellar. Six more, actually, though I suggest we stick to the one for tonight.”

Hector takes another sip and thinks that he could happily drink his way through all six of those bottles himself. The Sauternes is delectably light, refreshing in a way he hadn’t previously known wine could be. It is perhaps the most luxurious thing he has ever partaken in. He watches as Alucard’s head tips back, the line of his throat fluctuating as he swallows, and thinks that perhaps Dracula’s son had been born to drink French wine by the fire while drenched in silk.

“Thank you, Alucard,” he says again, only this time with much more gravity. He hadn’t expected Alucard to so much as remember their conversation, nevermind which wine it had been that he had enjoyed so much. The thought is… flattering. Alucard merely tilts his head, twirling his now empty glass by the stem between his thumb and forefinger.

“Well, you hardly seemed to enjoy the whisky.”

“I wouldn’t say I _ disliked _ it—” Alucard smirks, “—but it was simply… not what I am used to.”

“I suppose that is fair.”

Amiable quiet falls hushed around them as Hector sips blissfully at his wine and Alucard pours himself another glass.

Alucard is remarkably beautiful. It is simply a fact. An observation in nature. The sky is blue. Birds lay eggs. Clouds make rain. The ocean has its tides, the moon rises each night, and Adrian Tepes is the most exquisite creature Hector has ever laid eyes upon. While he has always known that on some inane, subconscious level, it has never been more apparent to him than in this particular moment. Stretched out along the floor, his feet bare on the carpet and the firelight dancing over the regal bone structure of his face, Alucard looks… startlingly soft. Almost touchable. Human. Gone was the stern, intimidating aura that had once frightened Hector so. He absentmindedly tucks a few strands of hair behind the shell of his ear and Hector shocks himself as he wonders how it would feel between his fingers. Alucard idly plucks at the book he’d gifted Hector, shuffling through a few of the pages, and a thought occurs to him.

“I nearly forgot,” Hector says suddenly. “There was something in there that I meant to ask you about.”

He takes the book from Alucard, searching through it for the place he’d meant to mark. When he finds it, he turns it to show him just what it is he is talking about.

“Here, in this section on polarity, you’ve written something in the margins. At least, I am assuming it was you, the handwriting looks similar enough.” Hector points at the hastily scrawled writing. “‘Florin.’ It comes up again and again in the next few pages. What does it mean?” Hector’s eyes scan the page, spotting more and more scratchings of the word. “Is it a law? A theory, or some kind of diagram? I can’t find any other mention of it in the book.”

To his surprise, Alucard begins to _ laugh. _Hector blinks. Suddenly afraid he has done something foolish, that he has misunderstood something plainly obvious as he is wont to do, his ears begin to grow hot.

“No,” Alucard tells him, and the grin on his face helps to calm the unease in Hector’s gut. “It’s not that. It has nothing to do with chemistry, I’m afraid. Actually, this is a little mortifying.” Hector’s brow furrows, and Alucard’s eyes humbly meet his own in a demure flicker of gold. “‘Florin’ was the name of the first boy I ever kissed.”

Hector can feel the blush creep into his face. His eyes go wide, mouth parted in surprise. “I… oh.”

“I was very young. And very infatuated. Father was far from pleased when he caught me scribbling away during his lessons.” Alucard chuckles, and there is a tiny whisper of bitterness in it. “He told me if I was going to spend his efforts to educate me daydreaming about farm boys then I was wasting both of our time. He threatened to confine me to the castle, forbade me from ever seeing him again, and we fell into the most awful shouting match. Mother heard it clear from the other wing and came in to scold both of us.”

Hector tries to imagine a smaller Alucard, red in the face and shaking as he screamed at his father, the fearsome Vlad Dracula Tepes, over a _ boy. _He finds that he simply cannot fathom it. “Did you ever see him again?” he asks lightly.

“No. I was so embarrassed about the whole ordeal that I stopped talking to him entirely. To his credit, though, he wasn’t a farm boy; he was the baker’s son.” He raises his glass to Hector before taking another long drink. “There you go. Mystery solved.”

Hector leans back against the wooden leg of the sofa. He worries his bottom lip pensively between his teeth. A thought occurs to him, and he gives voice to it without thinking. “I have never kissed anyone before.”

_ That _ seems to stun Alucard. He blinks in the face of Hector’s declaration, and when he slowly looks up at him Hector swears he can see a genuine glimmer of astonishment. “Truly?” he says, and Hector shakes his head in answer. “Never?”

“Never.” He clears his throat, abruptly feeling rather warm. “I… did not have many friends growing up, and my life in Rhodes was a fairly solitary one.” He shrugs his shoulders, unable to offer much else in explanation.

“Hm. That is a shame.”

Hector’s heart leaps into his throat. A low, fluttering anxiety flares in the pit of his stomach. It is not entirely unpleasant. The glass in his hands begins to shake, and Hector quickly realizes it is because his hands are trembling. Alucard gazes at him calmly from a few feet away, and suddenly it is hard to breathe. Hector’s eyes fall to his mouth. His lips are pale, satiny pink. Like flower petals, he thinks. Like the roses in his garden. Alucard parts them to speak, and the pearly glitter of his fangs catches in the light.

“Hector,” he murmurs, and his voice is so soft, so gentle as he says Hector’s name that it _ aches. _ “Would you like for _ me _ to kiss you?”

_ “Yes.” _

His tongue answers for him. Alucard smiles again, and it is a different sort of smile. Happy. Sweet. Leisurely, calmly, Alucard sets his wine glass to the side. He draws himself to his knees, slinking his way across the carpet so that he kneels over Hector, so close that all he needed to do was reach out, only barely, to touch him. He smells very faintly of soap, the wine sweet on his breath as Hector imagines it is on his own. Underneath that… he smells of freshly fallen snow. Clean and pure and brisk.

He had completely expected for his touch to be cold, dead and frigid like every other vampire that has ever laid hands on him, but as Alucard slowly reaches out to cup Hector’s jaw in his palm he is so beautifully _ warm. _He makes a small, hushed sound at the contact. Alucard strokes his thumb over his cheekbone and he leans into it.

“You’re sure about this?” Alucard asks him and he gingerly nods his head

“Please.”

Alucard laughs quietly. He leans down, his head bowing to meet Hector’s, and tenderly presses their lips together.

It is a chaste kiss, little more than a tentative brush of mouths. Alucard’s lips are warm and wet with wine against his own. Hector sighs into it. His eyes close, his fingers coming to rest in the crook of Alucard’s elbow. He is unsure if it is an attempt to ground himself, or if simply wants him closer. Alucard’s hair is soft against his cheek as he leans further in. The pure, unabashed heat of him stuns Hector to stillness. The anxiety seems to melt from his body as Alucard tilts his head so that their lips fit better together. It is lovely. It is _ perfect. _

Alucard pulls away with one last lingering peck to the bow of his lips. Hector’s fingers clench in the sleeve of his robe. He suddenly realizes that he had forgotten to breathe throughout the whole thing, and the first sharp rush of air back into his lungs brings him back to himself. Alucard gazes down at him and his eyes are heavy-lidded and bright. He smiles, and Hector cannot help but return it.

“Well, what did you think?”

Hector ghosts his hand along Alucard’s arm until he reaches the delicate skin of his wrist, where he still holds his jaw. He brushes his thumb over Alucard’s pulse.

“I think,” he whispers, straining up to meet him, “that I would like you to kiss me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you all liked the ending to this chapter! Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!!!!!!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _Cén chaoi a bhfuil a fhios ag Alucard?:_ How does Alucard know?
> 
> _Níl a fhios agam. A athair, b'fhéidir:_ I don not know. Perhaps his father told him.
> 
> _Leanbh:_ A baby.
> 
> _Tá sé ag bláthú:_ He is blushing.


	16. Part XVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sorry this chapter is a bit shorter than usual. I'm doing some traveling this weekend, so I wanted to post something before I left. I hop you enjoy it all the same!
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her new fic [Enthralled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496005/chapters/53753908). It's fairly new and definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Hector rather _ enjoys _ it when Alucard kisses him, he finds. He enjoys how close Alucard steps in order to press their lips together. He enjoys the slight bend of his head in order to reach Hector’s mouth properly. He enjoys the quiet hesitation Alucard affords him before each one, as though he were asking for permission, waiting for Hector to close the final gap between them. He _ especially _ enjoys the smile he is rewarded with in the aftermath, one he knows he mirrors every single time.

The kisses themselves are still a rare enough occurrence that Hector counts the seconds between them. There may be one as he is on his way into the castle from an afternoon spent in the gardens, flushed from his time in the sun and still smelling faintly of roses and earth. Occasionally Alucard will grant him one just after breakfast, as he is still finishing his second cup of tea over a book. Hector’s favorites are those he receives in the evenings, after an hour or two spent pouring through his new chemistry volumes, hashing out the newest of his lessons over parchment covered in scribbles. He might be exasperatedly working his way through an equation one moment, and in the next Alucard will find the worried line of his mouth. These are always the sweetest, flavored by whatever liquor Alucard has chosen for them that night. Hector finds his way back to his bedroom afterwards with the tips of his fingers pressed tenderly to his lips, reliving every second before he lies down to sleep.

It takes them, of course, no time at all to be caught in the act. Hector had simply meant to catch Alucard outside of his study, some inane question or other on his tongue, and Alucard’s answer is accompanied by a fleeting, affectionate kiss. Neither of them had anticipated an unsuspecting Iri to suddenly appear from the study herself at that very moment. The sound of the door swinging open, followed by a shocked cry, had simply managed to line up with the exact moment Alucard’s lips met his own.

Hector’s face lights up with a blush so fierce he is sure he will implode on the spot.

“Really?” Iri asks them. She looks to be fighting down a smile with each indignant word that follows. “The two of you did not expect to be found _ in the middle of the hallway?” _

Mortified, Hector hardly says a word that night at dinner. Alucard weathers the situation with a marked amount of good humour. While Iri makes no mention of their little blunder, Hector can tell by the pointed, curious stares Aria throws to the both of them that her sister had told her all about discovering the two of them.

He goes to bed that evening with a mostly empty stomach, save for the butterflies keeping him awake.

The next day, Alucard finds him in the library as he is slowly beginning to return the collection that has been curating in his bedroom.

“Good morning,” Hector says to him, unable to stifle the pleased smile crawling over his face. The mere sight of Alucard is enough to send his heart racing and leave him grinning like a fool. He turns his back to hide it, making a show of putting his books away.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

Hector scoffs tiredly. “Hardly.”

“I am sorry to hear it.” Hector stretches to try and slide a particularly hefty tome back into a tall shelf, leaning forward on his toes to reach. “I suppose you would be too fatigued to accompany me into the village today?”

The book slips from his fingers. It tumbles back down to the ground, narrowly missing Hector’s temple.

“Oh, god,” he mutters, attempting to right himself on his feet. Alucard takes a concerned step closer. “Apologies. Lost my footing.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Hector offers him a strained look as he bends to pick up the dislodged book. “It’s nothing. A misjudgement in balance.”

In truth, the thought of leaving the safety of the castle’s shadow fills Hector with indescribable dread. In all the weeks since arriving, he has not dared to venture further than the Belmont estate’s garden. Past the roots of his roses, the haven he has made for himself of this place ends. The world beyond is a dark and foreboding unknown. A place where Carmilla still lingers, ready to snatch him away with her claws and her soldiers and their cold, cold hands. 

Hector has grown to trust Alucard. It has taken time, and no small amount of courage on his part, but he does. He does not trust the people in the village. He does not trust himself.

“... Hector?”

Alucard’s voice pulls him back from inside of his own head. His eyes are searching for something, though Hector cannot tell what. He wishes he knew. Perhaps it would help to assuage the guilt growing at the base of his throat.

“... Not today, I am afraid.” He hugs his books to his chest, as though the action would help to stop the shaking of his hands. It almost works. “There is much I wished to get done today here in the castle.”

It is a flimsy lie. He knows it. Alucard, though, does not delve any further. He simply nods his head in understanding, and Hector knows at once that he need not explain anymore. There is a humbling rush of relief that swells in his gut at the sight of Alucard’s knowing, gentle smile. He is at once immensely grateful and irrevocably angry with himself.

“Another time then.”

“Yes.”

Later, when nearly all of his volumes have been neatly put away in their organized shelves, a thought strikes him. It is as he is leafing through a geography text, and he happens to catch a glimpse of a detailed illustration of a desert. He turns to Alucard with the question perched on his lips.

“Did you meet Isaac? That night during the fighting?”

“Your fellow forgemaster?” Alucard asks him. Hector gingerly smoothes his fingers over the pages. A pang of something he cannot put a name to. Unease, maybe. Or potential grief for a man he had not known half as well as he should have.

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“... No.” Alucard’s brow furrows. He leans against a reading desk, arms folded over his chest. “I believe I saw him caught in combat on the staircase that leads to father’s study. We locked eyes, very briefly, before he retreated. When I reached the study… my father was alone.”

Hector’s eyes leave the book. He tilts his head, puzzled. “That cannot be right. Isaac would have died defending Dracula. He would never have left his side.”

“I know not what else to tell you, Hector. He was not there.” Alucard shrugs. “There were no human remains in the castle, and neither I, nor Sypha, nor Trevor found a trace of him. Perhaps he escaped on his own?”

“No. I think that highly unlikely. He loved your father; deeply so. His loyalty was unwavering, and he would have rather died than leave him.”

“Not all men manage to hold their own in the face of certain death.”

“And you did not know Isaac.” He scoffs at himself. “Then again, I can’t say I knew him very well myself. We were not exactly close.”

Alucard hums out of curiosity. He rolls his head on his neck to face Hector. “What was he like? From what you _ did _ know of him.”

“He was… very intense.” Hector flips absentmindedly through the book, eager to see what other pictures it offered. He recalls the first time he saw Isaac, after he had first been brought to the castle. He’d never seen anyone with eyes quite like his before; cool, but alarmingly fierce. “A remarkably skilled forgemaster, maybe even more so than I was. He too was passionate about his work but… in a different way. Like he tried to keep a secret. We did not talk to each other often.” Isaac would call him a traitor, Hector thinks. His heart aches in his chest. Perhaps he was.

“Father’s writings mention that he had wished you were better friends.”

“I don’t think either of us were particularly skilled in the art of making friends.” The small chuckle that huffs its way past his lips is frail, self-deprecating. “In fact, I don’t think he liked me very much at all.”

“Nonsense,” Alucard says to him, and their eyes meet, clear blue to sweet gold. _ “I _happen to like you very much.”

Hector cannot say he is entirely happy with the frequency in which he blushes these days. The words that usher the heat to his face, however, he supposes he can live with. A bashful smile tugs at his lips, and he nervously turns to hide his face, tucking his hair back behind one ear. “Well,” he says sheepishly, and his voice cracks a tiny bit, “I should say not for my culinary prowess, _ that _ much I’m sure of.”

Alucard’s eyes widen by a fraction, and he blinks in the face of Hector’s poor excuse of a joke. Then, with more grace and elegance than Hector has ever seen from another person, Alucard throws his head back, clutches at his belly, and _ laughs. _It is a beautiful sound. Warm and fond as it bounces off the stone walls of the library. The morning sunlight catches on his skin, his long hair, his glittering fangs, and Hector is all but entranced. In that moment, Alucard looks happier than he’s ever seen him, and Hector’s pulse quickens with the boldness it inspires in him.

Before he can catch himself, before he even knows what he is doing, he has crossed the distance to him and lain his books down upon the desk. Alucard’s laugh trails off into intermittent chuckles, and Hector can feel each exhale as it breaks the air between them. He lifts his hands to cradle Alucard’s face, fingertips delighted by the sheer heat of his skin.

He kisses Alucard. He cannot help himself. Alucard is blindingly handsome in the light of the morning sun, framed by so many glittering motes of library dust, and Hector simply _ has _ to kiss him. He has to be the one to reach for Alucard’s mouth, because there is no possible way Alucard could ever know how utterly wonderful he looks in this moment, and Hector will be damned if he lets it pass them by.

Alucard’s lips move softly against his own, soft and dry. Like the skin of a peach, Hector, thinks and he is struck with the sudden longing to know just how he tastes. A comforting hand settles at the small of his back, bringing him in close, as its twin cups tenderly at the back of his skull. Alucard’s thumb brushes affectionately at the angle of his jaw, just below his ear, and Hector sighs.

Alucard is smiling as he pulls away, leaving a trail of kisses past the edge of Hector’s mouth, up over his cheekbone until he reaches the corner of his eye. It is remarkably tender, almost ticklishly so, and Hector laughs as he drops his head to hide his face in Alucard’s collar.

A timid rap at the library door startles them from one another. Hector pulls back from the arms that hold him. Aria stands at the threshold of the room, looking mildly at the two of them as if they hadn’t just been caught. Alucard’s fingers catch at the hem of Hector’s shirt, worrying the fabric between them.

“Hector,” she calls to him, and the mortification clawing its way up his face begins to wane at the sound. Something is wrong, and he knows it simply by the way she says his name. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

* * *

“You are leaving?”

All of the air seems to dissipate from the room with the fragile nod of Aria’s head. The floor feels as though it has dropped out from below his feet. Hector could liken it to the sensation of a dream, a dream where he is falling and just before he hits the ground he jolts awake. Only this time, there is no dream to wake from. He is simply caught in that moment, directly before his body meets the Earth and it all but knocks the very wind from his chest.

“When?” he asks her, and the catch in his throat threatens to undo him. _ How long do I have left before you’re gone? _

“Four days.” Aria offers him a sad smile, and he so wants to close his eyes to it. “Iri and I had a very long talk last night after we came back from the archives. We think we have done enough research to continue our search.”

“For the friend you thought was in Styria?” Hector’s thoughts reel in his head, trying to piece everything together. “You managed to glean that from what? A few crumbling trade documents some Belmont hoarded away a century ago?”

“They were not simply _ trade _ documents, Hector. They are records of black market slaver routes, and yes, we intend to follow them. The same way we followed a few rumors in a tavern to Styria and found you.”

Shame prickles hotly at the back of his neck. Aria’s face is soft when she looks at him, and it unsettles his stomach. Hector sits down on his bed. His hands fall limply into his lap. “Where are you going?”

“North. Far north. We aim to journey there during the summer, in order to avoid the snows. That is why we must leave now, to make the most of the warmer season.”

“Will you be coming back?”

The bed dips beside him. Aria pulls her knees up to her chin, head cushioned upon them as she looks at him with sad eyes. “Of course. We will always come back for you, Hector.”

“When?”

“With any luck, we will return just after autumn arrives.”

_ “Autumn.” _

Months. It has taken him months to crawl back into some semblance of normalcy, to dig himself out from the grave Carmilla very nearly put him in. Time that he has both had to weather and let slip between his fingers all at once. Hector feels the tug of it behind in his bones as Aria’s hands slowly come to envelope his own. Her fingers delicately fill the spaces between his own and all he can think about is that he will eventually have to let go.

“I have something for you. A gift.”

There is something curled tightly against her palm. She presses it into his, and as Hector turns it over to look at it, he is curiously silent. Dangling from a loop of thin, high quality leather is a mounted shard of rounded, clear crystal. As it refracts the light, throwing scattered fragments of rainbows against the floor, Hector recognizes it to be the same crystal from the head of Aria’s staff. It is just big enough to pull over his wrist. Aria slides it over his hand for him.

“Should you ever need us, whether you simply want to talk or if things here are dire,” she gently touches the crystal and it gives off a small, ringing chime, “all you need do is hold it to you lips and whisper my name, or Iri’s. We will always answer.”

“You will hear it?”

“Yes. We will.”

A cloud drifts through the sky outside, obscuring the golden morning sun. The glittering array of rainbow light disappears, though the crystal still continues to hum slightly in their absence. Hector closes his fingers around it. The crystal is warm against his skin.

“What am I to do without either of you?”

Aria rests her head at his shoulder. Her small arms pull him close, pull him tight, and he gently rests his jaw over her soft, pale hair. She smells of the woods outside the castle. Tall pine and garden roses.

“You will be happy,” she tells him, and he wants to argue. How could he be happy knowing she and Iri are on their own, without him, wandering a world where the threat of Carmilla still lingers? “You will have Alucard. You will have your garden, and your books, and little Cezar. You will have this castle, and its master, and you will be _ safe _ here. Knowing all of this is nearly enough to settle my heart at the thought of saying goodbye.”

“Nearly?”

She turns her head, burying her face in his sleeve. Warm, damp tears soak through the linen and into his skin.

“Oh, but I will _ miss _you, Hector.”

Another cloud blots out the remainder of the sunlight. As the room is cast in a grey, dim veil, Hector holds Aria close and ponders how he will ever come up with the strength to say goodbye in just three days. Her body shudders against his with each bitten off sob and his heart breaks piece by piece with each one.

Outside, rain begins to gently beat at his bedroom window.

* * *

“You will look after him?”

Alucard has never heard Iri sound so vulnerable; so unlike herself. Her face is pale, her brow lined with worry and he believes he can see her hands shaking where they lie in her lap. He looks at her impassively, making no mention as to the odd state she has come to him in.

“I will,” he promises, and it seems to bolster her spirits if only by a fraction.

“You will make sure he eats enough? Sometimes I worry; when he is troubled, it affects his appetite.”

“I am aware,” he tells her, biting his tongue on the urge to remind her he has been Hector’s physician for nearly as long as they’ve known each other.

“And at night, he may have trouble sleeping. He often has nightmares. When they are especially bad he takes to wandering the castle. Aria and I always leave our door open for him so that he does not need to knock.” She stands abruptly, as though sitting still were too much for her, and she paces near the fireplace. “You will be there for him? When he cannot sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, and I always brew tea for him in the morning, when I wake up. Will you remember—”

_ “Iri.” _ Alucard’s voice breaks her from her rambling, and she blinks distractedly at him. “I think Hector is perfectly capable of preparing his own tea, don’t you?”

“… Yes.” Iri reaches up to rub at the back of her neck, fingers digging into the tense muscles there. “I am sorry. He is not a child, and neither are you. It is only… It feels cruel, to leave him now. Just as he is only beginning to feel safe again.”

“I promise you, he will remain safe even without the two of you here with him.” A surge of something both profound and protective warms the depths of Alucard’s heart. It nearly winds him, and he struggles for words to fill the silence in between them. “Nothing will happen to him in this castle.”

“… Good.” She nods hesitantly. Alucard sees her swallow something down, and if he did not know any better he would have guessed it was a sob. “You will be careful with him?” she asks, and the deeper meaning behind it is not lost on him.

“I don’t—”

“I am not a fool, Alucard. I see the way you look at him. I know what it means.” The tone of her voice splinters the words before they can leave his lips. “Hector is a grown man; he can make his own decisions, and so can you. But I beg you to be _ careful, _ for his sake.” Wide, green eyes bore into his and they are glistening with tears. “He has been so badly hurt. You cannot even begin to understand, and it has made him _ fragile. _ I would hate to see him shatter because his heart was handled hastily.”

“That will not happen,” Alucard tells her fiercely. The same flame of emotion flickers along the cage of his ribs, and for a moment it _ frightens _him.

“I do not feel as though I need to threaten you, Alucard, but if you hurt that boy, so help me…”

“You have my word.”

That seems to assuage her fears, for the moment, at least. She nods sullenly. The rain outside sends rivulets sluicing down the glass pane of the window, and it casts eerie, thin shadows over them both. Iri ceases her pacing. She gazes at him, for a long time, as though trying to find it within herself to trust him. When she crosses the room to open the door, he wonders if she has made her decision.

“Oh, and one more thing,” she murmurs, turning her head one last time. “Make sure Hector spends enough time in the sun, Alucard. He does not belong in the dark.”

“… I know.”

With that, she closes the door behind her. Alucard watches her go, and a sense of finality closes in on him. A chapter brought to a close and, the promise of a new one close at hand. Thunder rolls in the clouds above Castlevania’s towers, a spring storm brewing on the horizon, and he wonders what that means for all of them.

* * *

It rains for four days. Four sad, anxious days of clouded skies and even more clouded hearts. Their two faeries wander the halls like ghosts, and Alucard can only look on as Hector comes to grips with the fact that before long, the castle will be two people empiter.

When the time comes to say goodbye, they take little more than the clothes at their backs, Iri with her bow and Aria with her staff, and the small pack they arrived with. Alucard helps to secure the horse to the wagon as water falls in sheets all around them. When he is finished, the soaked hood of his cloak hanging wetly in front of his face, he bids Iri a wordless goodbye. Aria smiles to him in farewell as he means to make his way back into the castle. Hector lingers in the deluge, and Alucard cannot help to watch them.

Iri’s hands reach for his face, and he bends as she pulls him close. She places a long, tender kiss at his temple as the rain soaks their faces. When she pulls back her lower lip is trembling. She pats at Hector’s cheek as she moves to make room for her sister. Aria’s face is red with tears. She hides it in his shoulder as he folds her into a lingering embrace. The three of them stay like that for a long while, holding each other desperately in the storm for the last time. Alucard turns away before he has a chance to see Hector’s face, heading for the dry interior of the castle.

When they are gone and Hector is finally inside, he is soaked to the bone. His hair hangs in sopping curls about his face, and Alucard reaches to hold him close. Hector all but falls into him, leaning heavily against his shoulder as he buries his nose in Alucard’s neck. The damp is cold on his skin, but he welcomes it all the same.

“A bath,” he says to Hector, “and some dry clothes. Then I shall meet you in the kitchen?”

Hector nods wordlessly, reaching to wipe away some of the water on his face with the heel of his palm.

Later that evening, after a lonely meal passed mostly in morose quiet, he coaxes Hector into their sitting room. He is unsure when it had ceased to simply be a sitting room and become _ theirs, _but as they settle upon the sofa together he is unsure of what else to call it. Hector has brought with him another book, and Alucard his patients’ log, but neither of them seem to be able to muster the focus to read.

It has only been an hour, perhaps, since the departure of their faerie companions and yet the yawning silence that fills the castle is nearly deafening. Alucard catches Hector staring listlessly out of the window, his book forgotten in his lap and his fingers toying with the crystal charm at his wrist, and he decides he can no longer sit and tolerate this melancholy.

He touches Hector’s shoulder. It startles him out of whatever somber reprieve he has escaped to. When Alucard coaxes him close, close enough to settle his ear against his heart, he welcomes it. The two of them lie there for the remainder of the night. At some point Cezar finds them and, not content to be left alone for the evening, he joins them upon the sofa, curled up in the crook of Hector’s arm. The rain falls down around them outside, and the fire slowly dies in the grate.

They fall asleep there, in the tiny sitting room where his mother used to read to him and his father used to help him with his lessons. Hector’s weight is a satisfying warmth at his side, his breath a steady rhythm at his neck. Cezar snuffles as he dreams between them, and Alucard’s heart feels both hollow at the loss of their friends, yet full for the man beside him. As he rests his lips at the crown of Hector’s hair, breathing in the scent of sandalwood oil and spring rain, it is the first time in a long, long while that there is no room left for the ache that has plagued him for so long.

In the morning, he is the first to wake. The rain has stopped. Sunlight illuminates every puddle in that dots the land beyond the window, and Alucard’s arms tighten around Hector’s sleeping form. A raven soars through the sky, and he can tell it is headed for the rookery before it finishes its reproach.

Hector does not stir as he disentangles himself from his arms, and as Alucard ascends the stairs he makes a note to start a pot of tea in the kitchen on his way back. The raven was indeed carrying a letter and as he sits down to read it, Sypha’s familiar handwriting covers the page. A fond, wistful smile blankets his features as he reads her rambling greeting, happy to know she and Trevor are both well and whole.

At first, it is nothing too exciting. Sypha’s family has welcomed a new child in their midst, a cousin she helped to deliver. Trevor has continued his hobby of whittling as they travel and has apparently grown fairly decent at it. Their last venture to a village infested with were-rats was a success; no casualties and a hefty reward from the village headman. As his eyes reach the ending of the letter, the smile begins to wane from his lips. A low pang of anxiety throbs at the back of his head.

_ Trevor and I have been discussing the possibility of passing the summer in the castle, with you. He says he has news for you, and there are things the three of us need to discuss together. Something is brewing to the west of the country. _

Alucard’s mind races. He thinks of the man down in the floors below, curled up asleep on his mother’s favorite sofa. He thinks of the nervous, frightened look he’d been given at the mention of the village nearby. Alucard reaches for parchment, for a quill and an inkwell as he thinks of the promise he had made to Iri mere days before.

_ Before you leave for the castle, before you arrive, Sypha, there is something I must tell you, _ he writes. _ But first you must promise me you will withhold it from Trevor, so that I may explain everything myself. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!! Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!!!!!


	17. Part XVII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: descriptions of sexual assault and abuse in this chapter
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely comments on the last chapter! I really hope you enjoy this one :)
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [Enthralled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496005/chapters/53753908). It's fairly new and definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

The start of summer rolls in like a slow lazy tide crawling over the sand. It laps gently at the ankles like lulling waves of seafoam. Dew-damp mornings spent in the garden, searing afternoons passed in the shade of the castle in order to escape the oppressive heat. Balmy evenings with the windows left open, the song of insects filling its cavernous halls.The weather turns sunny, leaving the air thick and syrupy in the wake of lingering spring rains. The days grow longer, the migratory birds return home to roost, and everything outside sings green and heavy with the season. It is a magnificent transformation to watch unfold, even as the sweat sticks cloyingly to their skin. Even in the climate controlled interior of the castle, the warm summer months seem to saturate the very air they breathe.

It is a beautiful day and on the inside, Hector is doing his absolute best not to utterly fall to pieces.

He shifts uncomfortably on his feet in the castle’s entrance hall. The nerves in his fingers rattle as he attempts to smoothe over any potential wrinkles in the new vest he wears over his linen shirt. He had stitched it together himself, itching to wear something besides ill-fitting second hand clothes that would never quite belong to him. It is a bit stiff, made of comfortable blue cotton and tied at the waist with a cream colored sash. As Hector fidgets, he spots a loose thread or two near the hem.

They wait there, in the hum of the castle’s electric lights, for the two remaining members of the trio that had slain Dracula. Alucard stands calmly at his side, and next to Hector he is the picture of composure. Alucard does not fiddle with his buttons. Alucard’s palms do not appear to be damp with perspiration. Alucard’s heart is probably not hammering against his ribs like a rabbit’s.

“You will like Sypha,” he had told Hector. “She is friendly, insufferably so at times, and profoundly brilliant. Rather like you.” He had smiled as he spoke, and for a moment Hector dared to entertain the thought that perhaps this meeting would end in something other than disaster.

“And Trevor Belmont?” Hector had asked in a small, unsure voice. At the mention of the name, Alucard’s enthusiastic expression had dimmed.

“… I shall handle Belmont.”

That had been little comfort to Hector then, and it is no more reassuring now. Not as he waits for the two strangers that had killed his former master to breach the sanctuary he has made for himself of this place.

He had been angry when Alucard had told him about the letter. Angry and hurt and _ frightened, _and what was worse was that he had no right to be. This was Alucard’s castle; Alucard’s home. Hector was merely an interloper lucky enough to have found his way in. “You cannot turn them away?” he’d begged in his frantic, cracked voice. “Delay them, somehow?”

Alucard had shaken his head. “Hector, I cannot send them away. This castle sits on the Belmont estate. Trevor’s family is buried just on the other side of your garden. This place is as much his home as it is mine; as it is _ yours.” _

It was then Hector knew there would be no convincing him otherwise. Perhaps Belmont will kill him, he thinks, as he stares in anticipation at Castlevania’s huge, hulking doors. Perhaps he will call Hector a monster and strike him down like so many that had fallen at his ancestors’ hands. Perhaps he will be thrown out of the castle and left to fend for himself in a world that has never been his friend.

There is a rapid knock at the door. Hector stops his fidgeting at once. He stands deathly still, and the sudden urge to retreat up the stairs, to shut himself away somewhere safe and out of reach nearly compels him to move. Alucard’s hand gently touches his elbow in a well-intentioned attempt to comfort him. It makes him jump.

“Wait here,” he says softly to Hector, and then he is gone down the stairs. Hector wants to call after him, to ask him to please _ wait, _to grant him just a few more moments to search for the courage he knows isn’t there, but his voice will not work in his throat and Alucard is already out of reach.

Once, Hector had walked this very hall with all the confidence and determination to stare down some of the deadliest and most powerful creatures on the face of the Earth. He had held his own amongst them, or so he had thought, and demanded their respect simply by way of the trust Dracula had placed in him. Now, he cowers. He trembles. He shrinks. It aches in the hollows of his wildly beating heart.

The doors open.

Daylight floods the dimmed hall as they swing wide, and for a second Hector is blinded by it. He hears excited voices, hurried footsteps, and as the doors close again they only seem to grow in volume. A man and a woman have crossed the threshold, and the both of them set their sights on Alucard.

The young woman rushes towards Dracula’s son, her arms wrapping tightly around him, and Hector knows her to be Sypha Belnades. His first thought as he sees her is that she is very, very pretty. Her skin is warm and golden, her eyes a wide and expressive blue, with short auburn hair that curls charmingly about her face. She wears similarly blue Speaker’s robes, her arms bare in the summer heat. There is a jagged set of scars at the meat of her deltoid muscle: three long and gnarled claw marks of white, raised tissue. Hector thinks he can guess as to how she received them.

“I’ve missed you!” she says into Alucard’s neck. She bounces excitedly on the balls of her feet as she hugs him. When she straightens, her hands go to his face so she can pull him down for an affectionate kiss to his cheek. Hector suddenly feels markedly out of place. As though he were intruding on something meant not at all for him. “Oh, tell me everything that’s happened here! I want to know every single bit of what you’ve been up to!”

“Hello, Sypha.” The grin on Alucard’s face is audible even in the timbre of his voice.

“I’ve been reading your letters but it’s just not the _ same.” _Her head tilts as she looks at him and the adoring look in her eyes sends a sudden and jarring pang of longing through Hector’s chest. His fingers grapple for the crystal shard around his wrist.

Behind them looms a large man with a scarred face and piercing eyes. Hector takes one look at the whip coiled into his belt, at the insignia stitched into his tunic and knows him to be a Belmont. Sypha steps away from Alucard, allowing them a moment to face each other. Trevor extends his arm, and after a beat Alucard takes his hand to give it a considerate shake.

“Trevor,” he greets him, and the man smiles very faintly.

“You look well,” he says. “Better, anyway. I see you’ve pressed your shirt this time.”

“Clever. How was your journey?”

Belmont retracts his hand. He rolls his neck tiredly, stretching. “Boring,” he snorts, “for once. And warm.”

Sypha’s eyes fall on him and Hector freezes. He stares back, gaze locking to hers as he waits for her smile to dim, for her face to sour. It does not. “The weather was lovely,” she tells Alucard. “No rain, at least. We even had the chance to stop in the village nearby; a very quaint little place.”

Belmont finally spots him where he stands near the stairs. His face is overrun with a poorly masked combination of suspicion and what Hector assumes to be contempt. Hector swallows, and his anxieties feel like glass in his throat. He looks nervously to Alucard’s back.

“Alucard,” Sypha says cautiously, looping her arm into Belmont’s. “Who is this? A friend of yours?”

“Yes; there is someone I would like you to meet.”

Alucard finally turns to face him and the relief that floods every receptor in Hector’s brain is _ numbing. _Golden eyes meet his own and they are so kind, so fond that it inspires a flicker of hope in him. Alucard reaches for him, beckoning him towards the three of them and Hector timidly follows, his hesitant footsteps echoing throughout the room.

“This is Hector.”

Sypha offers him her friendly grin, and it brightens the dimly lit hall. He does his best to return it but his expression is a strained one. “Hello, Hector,” she greets, and he can tell right away that Alucard was right. He will like Sypha Belnades. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

One look at Belmont’s face, though, and Hector knows that this entire encounter has just gone up in smoke.

Alucard knows it too. His spine stiffens at the chilling energy that fills the space between them. Belmont glares at him, his lip curling as though the very sight of Hector is enough to disgust him. He gently unwinds Sypha’s arm from the crook of his elbow. Hector is abruptly filled with the urge to run, to hide his face, but Alucard clears his throat.

“Hector is—”

“I know _ damn _well who he is, Alucard.”

All the air seems to dissipate from the room. Hector can feel the blood drain from his face. His fingers begin to tremble where they sit clasped behind his back. Belmont turns to Sypha. He seems crestfallen; disappointed.

“I knew you were hiding something,” he tells her, and her lips part guiltily. “The both of you. I could tell there was something in that letter you weren’t telling me. I would have thought you would have known by now, Alucard, how terrible a liar Sypha is.”

“It wasn’t a lie,” she insists, crossing her arms in front of her.

“Call it what you want then,” Belmont says, “what you told me was not the truth. And _ you.” _ He takes an aggressive step towards Alucard, and Alucard gives him no quarter. He stares impassively back at him. “There are several things I’d call you, Alucard: a bastard, a spoiled prick, a capricious little dickhead—”

“A rather large word for you, don’t you think, Belmont?”

“—but I never would have taken you for a fucking _ fool.” _

“Oh, now that is rich.” Alucard’s voice is cold. Cool, even. “On what grounds do you think to call me the fool in this scenario?”

“I can come up with no better word for the man who lets Dracula’s forgemaster back into his castle and then calls him a friend!” Belmont’s voice grows in volume and Hector’s pulse skyrockets. He wrings his hands together.

“Whatever it is you think you know—”

“I know enough. I know there’s a bounty on his head so large it’s got every minor vampire lord from here to fucking France on their toes. A piss-poor hunter I would make if I didn’t at least keep an ear out for news like that. Jesus, Alucard. What the hell are you thinking?”

Alucard’s eyes widen at that. “Whose bounty?” he hisses. Belmont scoffs.

“Oh, I’ll bet he could tell you.” He points an accusing finger at Hector. “Although, I would take anything he says with a grain of salt. Not entirely sure how trustworthy a craven turncoat could possibly be.”

“That’s—” Hector’s mouth stumbles over the words. The indignant need to defend himself overpowers the crippling fear for but a brief moment, long enough to instill him with the audacity to speak up but not with the eloquence to follow through. “That isn’t—”

“That’s enough, Trevor,” Sypha snaps. Belmont turns to face her next.

“Do you remember those night creatures that followed us into the hold, Sypha? The ones that tried to rip the three of us to pieces? They were _ his. _He forged them, sent them after us, tried to kill us and now Alucard has invited him in for tea!” He is yelling in earnest now. Alucard suddenly advances, lip curled in a snarl.

“Do not raise your voice at her. She withheld that information from you at _ my _ request. I wanted the chance to explain all of this to you myself, as you have reacted exactly the way I predicted you would: like an assuming, idiot child.”

“An idiot child that helped to stop the fucking genocide this man would have aided your father in carrying out! He is a monster! And you have welcomed him with open arms back to the very place where he forged devils that slaughtered _ thousands!” _

“Alucard—” Hector murmurs quietly, and he reaches desperately for his arm.

“Why are you here?” Belmont asks him. Hector stills at the question, rooted to the spot as Belmont’s glares at him. He turns his head to Alucard. “Why did you let him stay? Why didn’t you kill him? Why haven’t you turned him away?”

Something sinks in behind Belmont’s eyes. They flicker between Alucard and Hector, at the hand clutching at Alucard’s sleeve, as though putting together pieces Hector himself does not see. A cruel, mocking smirk crawls over his face. He snickers.

“Is it because he lets you fuck him?”

Everything narrows down to a fixed point for Hector. He sees Alucard lunge forward. Hears the thick _ crack _ of his fist connecting with Belmont’s cheekbone. Vaguely registers Sypha screaming at them to stop. He witnesses all of this, and yet it is still so surreal, so distant compared to the shrill words shrieking through his skull.

_ Carmilla’s pet whore. Are you going to behave? I am going to break you. Hector, are you a virgin? Perhaps you require more incentive. Has no one ever touched you for pleasure? Let this be a lesson to you, puppy. If you’re going to fuck him at least gag him first so the rest of us don’t have to hear. Good boy. Good boy. Good boy. Good boyGood boyGood boyGoodboyGoodboygoodboygoodboygood— _

_ Fool. _

_ Fool, fool, fool. _

His feet feel like twin leaden weights as he turns to climb the stairs. The noise in his head is deafening, dulling to his senses as he retreats to the upper levels of the castle. He leaves the chaos that has broken out in the great hall at his back. Sypha’s voice calls his name somewhere in the background of it all, begging him to come back, and still he goes. He is not sure where exactly in the castle it is he is headed, but he has to get _ away. _

He runs.

* * *

It is not a particularly brutal blow, but Trevor had not been expecting it and Alucard has the advantage of speed. The last of the Belmonts grunts as his gloved knuckles drive into his face, buckling like a sack of bricks. He stumbles before collapsing to his knees, catching himself with one hand before he has the chance to fall flat on his ass. Alucard hovers over him with his teeth bared, fist tightening in anticipation of another strike.

“Stop it!” Sypha screams at them, her fingers clutching at the shoulder of his coat. “Both of you! Get ahold of yourselves before I have to scrape each of you off the floor!”

_ How dare you, _ Alucard wants to hiss. _ How fucking dare you. _“I see time has not remedied you of your boorishness.”

“No, and it feels _ so _good to be back underneath your skin.” Anger stings hotly at the tip of Alucard’s tongue, and it burns him to know that Trevor is right. “Hit a nerve, did I?”

_ “Fuck _you.”

“Oh, looks like I have. A touchy one, at that.” Trevor chuckles meanly. He wipes his mouth against his sleeve and blood stains it in a rusty smear. “Is that all it takes to stay here? Fucking you? If I had taken you up on your offer all those months ago, would _ I _get a claim to daddy’s castle too, Alucard? Or is that an honor reserved for necromancers who send demons out to kill children in their beds?”

The only thing that saves him is his proximity to Sypha. Alucard’s vision flashes red and blurred for a brief moment, his claws lengthening and threatening to rip through his gloves. Sypha steps in front of him. She pinches the shell of Trevor’s ear and yanks.

“Trevor, for once in your life will you _ shut your mouth.” _

“Why are you defending him?” he asks her, and he groans as her fingers twist.

“Because he is my friend! _ Our _ friend, Trevor, and I trust him! Besides, you never even gave him a chance to explain anything before you decided to run your mouth and humiliate us all!”

“Pardon me for questioning the judgement of a vampire that has decided to shack up with a murderer on my family’s land.”

_ “Half.” _ Alucard spits the word as he corrects him. “And lest you forget, Belmont, we are all murderers here.” Trevor glares. His fingers delicately prod at the bruise that is no doubt forming on his face as they speak. “Your rooms are on the second floor on the left side of the corridor. I trust you’ll not need my help to find them. Now, if you will excuse me.” He turns his back on them both, meaning to ascend the stairs to find Hector. “I am going to attempt to salvage what’s left of this disaster of an afternoon.”

Sypha’s clipped, angry voice as she continues to admonish Trevor follows him up the staircase. He’d heard Hector climb several stories and assumes he is in one of the upper levels. Alucard hadn’t seen the look on his face, but he’d heard the stutter in his heartbeat. He had been able to smell the panic roaring through his blood. Like the trigger in a bear trap, Trevor’s words had unleashed something flighty and raw and visceral, and it lingered at the back of Alucard’s tongue like the stench of stale, dead flowers. He follows it through the halls and when it grows strong enough to indicate that Hector is close, he stops.

The door to the forge is open.

As far as he is aware, that particular door has remained closed ever since he found Cezar tucked away in there, so many months ago. Occasionally, when Hector grows restless in the night, he will hear him meandering about in the hall, but never has he heard the door open. Alucard hurries to the forge, and finds Hector sitting against the wall opposite the worktable, his knees tucked tightly into his body.

Alucard had tried to keep his footsteps loud against the stone, but it appears Hector had not heard him. When he softly calls his name Hector startles, jumping nearly out of his skin as he sees him. He seems _ wilted. _ His eyes are all but vacant as they stare ahead at nothing. Hector thumbs absently at his lower lip

“Hector, I am sorry. This is my fault.” 

Silence. Hector’s mouth settles into a grim line. Guilt trickles lowly down Alucard’s throat, settling there thick and difficult. It would be hard to speak around it but he finds himself lost for the right words. He yearns to reach for him, to offer him whatever feeble comfort he is capable of but as he takes a step closer Hector only seems to curl further into himself and suddenly Alucard is petrified at the possibility that he has lost him for good.

“I never…” The voice that breaks the quiet between them is so small, so timid that even with his inhuman hearing Alucard nearly misses it. “I never _ let _ them fuck me.”

A ghostly hush falls all around them. Eerie calm in the wake of a lightning strike. Scorched earth devoid of life after a wildfire. Alucard is at once both consumed with cold, sizzling rage and counting the pieces of his heart as they crumble one by one. He wants a number. He wants names. He wants Carmilla’s chest open beneath his hands, her ribs splintered apart and her blood a red, red puddle at his feet. One look at Hector’s sullen face and he knows so much better than to ask for any of it. What little he has learned of the things that were done to him is so fractured and abstract; he knows it kills Hector to speak about it.

“I know,” is all he can bring himself to say. Even though he truly, truly does not.

Hector’s hand splays out over his sternum. His breaths are short, hard-fought in a way Alucard has not heard since he was still deep in the grips of the pneumonia. The wet rasp of illness is gone, but the labor of his lungs is familiar. “My chest,” Hector gasps suddenly, and Alucard’s muscles stiffen in alert. “I can’t… It hurts to breathe.”

“Hector, I think you are having a panic attack.”

“Oh, god, I can’t _ breathe.” _

Hector’s head falls back to lean against the wall. His fingers twist in his clothing until the skin over his knuckles goes ghostly white. Without thinking, Alucard places his hand at Hector’s knee and it is the wrong thing to do. Hector tears himself away, refusing to look him in the eye, and while he knows better than to feel hurt by the reaction it still _ stings. _

“You need to take long, deep breaths,” he tries to say, but he cannot be sure Hector even hears him. He can only watch in despair as Hector struggles to take in air, hoping desperately he won’t hyperventilate.

It is a gamble. He knows it before he even decides, but all hesitation is thrown to the wayside as the overwhelming need to _ help _ takes priority. He has to do something.

Alucard allows himself to draw inward. Allows his body to bend its corporeal form, for the snout to elongate from his face and the tail to grow from his spine. Thick, white fur sprouts where blond hair had once been, and when he stands upon four legs to look contritely at Hector with heavy, golden eyes, he waits.

_ Animals are simpler than people. _

When Hector sees him, his face is a combination of confusion and no small amount of awe. Alucard prepares himself for a rebuke, for fear to settle where familiarity had been before. It does not happen.

Hector’s hand slowly reaches out. It settles over the massive crown of his canine skull. Alucard huffs a contented breath through his wolfish muzzle. Hector’s thumb strokes tenderly between his eyes.

“That is you, isn’t it?” he whispers, and Alucard licks at his other hand in answer.

He curls his long body around Hector where he sits, settling his head into his lap. Hector’s hands reverently stroke themselves through the thick coat of his fur. They clutch at him as he buries his face into Alucard’s neck. Already his heartbeat is beginning to slow. Alucard can hear it in between each breath as he calms.

The sun streams in through the uncovered windows and lands upon them in a gleaming curtain, bathing the two of them in blinding summer warmth. The crystal around Hector’s wrist throws its light against the floor so that it splinters into brightly colored shards.

“I wish they were here,” Hector murmurs somewhere near his flickering ear. Alucard himself is, for once, glad there had been no faerie sisters for his friends to contend with. He highly doubts that Trevor would have survived the encounter with his throat intact otherwise.

They must sit like that for hours. The color of day shifts outside, from middling yellow to rich amber. Alucard can hardly bring himself to care. His friends, his guests, have been left to fend for themselves in his father’s castle, and yet it hardly matters. What is important is the man currently blanketed beneath the white brush of his tail, and Alucard resigns himself to warding off whatever ghosts linger in his head.

* * *

The sun sinks below the horizon as evening establishes itself over the countryside beyond the windows. Shadows fall in between the corners and empty corridors of Castlevania. Hector dodges them as he walks, feet nimbly traversing the old, priceless carpets that blanket the stone. His blue vest is gone, folded neatly and tucked away in the chest of drawers of his bedroom along with his cream sash. In a way, he had hoped they would be a sort of armor. In the aftermath of the catastrophe that had been that afternoon, it was clear that it had failed.

It is clear that neither Belmont, nor Sypha, nor Alucard for that matter had expected him to join them for dinner. Alucard had last left him in his bedroom and there he had stayed for the remainder of the day, making a valiant attempt to occupy his fraught mind with books and equations. It had worked for a time, but not for very long. Not content to sit and hide away, he’d dragged himself from whatever pit Trevor Belmont had nearly put him into if only for long enough to walk to the kitchen. He refuses to be bullied into falling asleep on an empty stomach.

Whatever strained conversation that had been passed between them stops as soon as he crosses the threshold. Suddenly all three of them look towards him. Hector hesitates at the doorway. The glow from the hearth paints the room in a deceptively cheery light. The scene is almost familiar, but where Iri and Aria once sat is now occupied by Sypha and Belmont, two pairs of eyes in differing shades of blue where once had been the same vast green twice over. Hector does not meet their gaze.

He silently crosses the room to timidly take his place at Alucard’s side. An empty plate had been set out for him, probably as a formality more than anything resembling any expectation that he would be joining them. Hector unfolds his napkin, places it politely over his lap. He serves himself a piece of whitefish and a small portion of roasted vegetables.

In the deafening silence, the ringing _ clink _of cutlery rings harsh and raucous. Belmont’s distasteful glare is louder than both.

“Are you feeling better, Hector?” Sypha asks, shattering the choked lull in discussion. “You looked, rather… pale earlier today. We were worried you were unwell.”

“I am fine,” he replies quietly, “thank you.” Alucard lifts a bottle to pour him some wine. Hector places his hand over the rim of his cup, shaking his head in a wordless decline.

“Didn’t look fine.” Alucard stiffens next to him at the gruff sound of Belmont’s voice. “In fact, I would have said you looked ready to faint dead away. Though I suppose I didn’t get a very good glimpse while you were running back up the stairs.”

“I assure you, I am all right.”

Hector raises his eyes from the table. He defiantly meets the hunter’s gaze, daring him to press the matter further. He reminds himself that he has faced far, far worse than Trevor Belmont.

“I’m curious.” Belmont crosses his arms over his wide chest and leans haughtily back in his chair. He cocks his head. “Tell me, Hector, did they feed you half as well as this in whatever hole you it was you crawled into after Dracula died?” Sypha elbows him, none too gently. Belmont barely reacts.

“Mind your tongue,” Alucard drawls dangerously from beside Hector, “lest it wind up somewhere other than your mouth.”

Hector calmly lays a hand at Alucard’s wrist, as though in an attempt to reassure him. “No,” he answers Belmont. “No, they did not.”

“That’s a shame.”

“You needn’t feel inclined to play his game, Hector.” Alucard primly wipes at his mouth with his napkin. “In fact, if Belmont intends to continue this little farce he shall be spending the night in the crumbling ruins of his family’s former manse rather than my father’s castle.”

“I am hardly the one playing at games here, Alucard.”

“Stop it, both of you.” Sypha’s eyes dart between the two of them. “Can we please just get through one meal in peace?”

“How am I supposed to eat in peace at the same table as _ that?” _

Hector, in the midst of lifting a small forkful of flaky fish to his mouth, stills. Petty and childish as the comment is, it still manages to irk him in the way he knows Belmont had intended it to. He presses his lips together, lowers his silverware back to his plate. His heart thunders angrily in his ears.

Alucard’s fingers curl into a fist against the wood grain of the table. “Belmont, I am warning you, one more outburst—”

“They starved me.”

The casual, almost disinterested tone in which Hector utters the words seems to stun every single one of them into speechlessness. Like he were simply commenting on the weather. Belmont blinks at him.

“You asked about how I was fed, after I left the castle. I wasn’t. Not regularly, at least, and when I was it was hardly edible enough to be called food.”

“That must have been _ so _ hard for you.” Belmont’s mocking intonation raises the hairs at the back of his neck. “Having to live off whatever scraps your vampire masters felt gracious enough to toss your way. Not quite what you signed up for? I wonder, was Dracula even dead before you ran after whatever ambitious lordling it was that took it upon themselves to take his place?”

“Her name was Carmilla,” he hisses, “And I didn’t _ run _ to her; she _ dragged _ me.”

He scoffs. “Of course she did.”

“You—” Hector’s throat is tight around the words as they fumble their way through his tongue and teeth. Alucard’s hand reaches underneath the table to lightly grasp at the curve of his knee, but whatever comfort the touch was meant to provide him rolls off his skin like water from a duck’s back. He is far too angry to be soothed. “You know _ nothing _ of what I have suffered.”

“Forgive me if I am not surprised that throwing your lot in with genocidal monsters did not turn out entirely the way you thought it would. I’m sure whatever abuses you were made to suffer were entirely undeserved.”

“Is that what you think? That I deserved it all?”

Belmont leers forward, eyes boring into Hector’s. “Far more than the people of Wallachia deserved the devils you unleashed upon them.”

“Have you ever been raped by a vampire, Belmont?”

Sypha gasps. Her hand flies to her mouth to cover it but the sound echoes in the suddenly hushed kitchen. The cocky gleam in Trevor Belmont’s eyes is rapidly replaced by one of shock. Alucard sits deathly still at his side. The tension that lies coiled inside of him is almost palpable. At the lack of an answer, Hector presses on, indignation fueling the flames licking their way across his heart.

“I asked, have you ever been—”

“No,” he barks at Hector through clenched teeth.

“I have. Several times, in fact, by a number of them. Multiple times a week. Sometimes twice in the same day, if I was particularly lucky.” His voice cracks at the admission, splintered over the truth like a ship dashed against a reef during a storm. “They are cold. Everywhere. Their hands, their eyes, their teeth. And they have claws. I’m sure, though, that as a Belmont you already knew all of that.”

“Hector,” Alucard murmurs, “stop. You don’t owe him any of this.”

“Oh, but he _asked._ I deserved it all, didn’t I?” Hector never moves his eyes from Belmont’s face, and the regret he finds there burns so sweetly, like Spanish brandy trickling down his throat. “The first time was the night they took me. Carmilla put a collar around my neck and had them chain me to a tree, like a dog. Worse than most would treat a dog, even. They gagged me so that no one would have to hear me screaming. Two of them at once; they took turns, like I was a toy to be passed between them.”

“Oh, my god.” Sypha turns her head away from all of them, tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes. Her hand remains pressed to her lips.

“After they brought me to the castle, they would wake me as I slept and shove my face into a pillow to keep me quiet. When I wasn’t raped, I was beaten, and when I wasn’t beaten, I was starved.”

_ “Enough.” _A muscle in Belmont’s jaw flexes. The anger and uncertainty seeping into his face is vindication incarnate, and Hector relishes it. “Is there a point to all this?”

The legs of his chair screech over the floor as Hector lurches to his feet. He grips at the edge of the table. Wine splashes in their cups, but none of it spills. “My _ point _ is that if you have come to force more shame down my throat, then I will tell you I am fed up! I am so full of it I could _ die, _and I simply cannot stomach anymore!”

He feels fingers clasping at his elbow, warm and familiar and tender and he hates that the warmth of the gesture is lost on him. He turns his head to face Alucard and nearly loses his nerve at the sight of wide, fretful golden eyes.

“I am sorry,” he tells Alucard, as though he were the only one in the room. “I know it means so little compared to what I have done, but I am sorry for everything. If I could take it all back, I would. I never wanted this; any of it. I wish I had never met your father. I wish I had never come to this castle, never taken up that _ fucking _ hammer. He lied to me, but I _ let _ him, and I will pay for that for the rest of my life.”

“Hector, please.”

“You tell me I deserved to be beaten, and raped, and starved, but I have spent months trying to convince myself of the same thing, because it is easier if there is a reason.” He stares down Belmont from across the table. He does not shy away from the unease he finds there, no matter how hard Belmont tries to hide it behind a veil of disgust. “I know there is blood on my hands! Far more than those of anyone else in this room. If I have to spend the rest of my days attempting to atone for it all then I will, but… But, if you mean to tell me all that I have suffered means nothing in the face of that then you can take your judgements, and your self-righteous accusations, and you can _ choke _ on them.”

With that, Belmont is finally rendered silent. Hector pants in the wake of his tirade, chest shuddering with hot, shaky breath. He looks down to his mostly untouched plate, to Alucard’s hand gripping tightly at his sleeve. To his empty cup. He wishes now that he’d let Alucard pour him that wine.

“I think… I will go to bed.”

“Wait,” Alucard begs him, but the shrill ringing between his ears is more than enough to drown him out.

“I am afraid I’ve lost my appetite. Good night.”

He leaves the table. The hand that had tried to steady him falls away. As soon as he leaves the kitchen, regret begins to sink in like infection to an open wound.

_ What have I done? _

He had never meant for Alucard to know. For anyone to know. He would have been satisfied to go the rest of his life without recounting any of what he has just blurted out in front of two strangers and the one man he has decided to trust.

Once safely inside the confines of his own bedroom, Hector closes the door behind himself and locks it shut.

His eyes scan the room. What few belongings he has managed to accumulate since his return to the castle lie scattered about. Stacks of books piled near his chair by the fireplace. The boots he wears in the garden, flanked by a box of soil dusted tools. A crystal vase at his bedside table housing one, single pink and white peony. One of the last of the season, a gift from Aria before she had left.

Hector looks at all of these things that had once made him happy, that had served to give him a semblance of a purpose, and he wants to destroy them. To rip the pages from their bindings, to throw his tools about the room, to fling the vase into the wall and hear it shatter into so many pieces just as he himself is on the verge of doing. But he does none of this. Hector simply stands, still as death, impotent in his turmoil. His hands shake. Each breath burns in his throat, as though he were breathing in poison.

What has he been doing here in this castle? Dread slowly trickles over his scalp, like cold water, and he feels like an utter fool. Playing pretend, his mind answers for him. Playing at normalcy like a child plays house, here in Dracula’s castle with Dracula’s son and two faeries he met mere months ago. Two faeries that had left him just days before, left him to try and sort through all of this _ sickness _on his own. He does not begrudge them their departure, cannot blame any of this on Aria or Iri, but oh how he wishes they were here now. That they might be able to help him make sense of the agony that rips through his chest like a sword.

There is a knock at his door. It startles him, sets his heart to race and his teeth to grind. The sound of the knock is soft. Hesitant. Hector anticipates for the lock to click, for the door to creak on its hinges. The sudden, overwhelming fear paralyzes him.

“Hector,” Alucard’s voice calls at the other side, and the buzzing anxiety reaches a fever pitch underneath his skin. “May I come in?”

_ No, _ he wants to say, _ no, leave me, leave me here to fall apart where no one else can watch. _ His legs, however, seem to have a different opinion as they carry him across the room. His fingers slip as they turn the lock, and when he cracks the door to see Alucard at the other side, he is both relieved and panicked at the sight of him.

For a moment, they simply look at each other. Hector does his best to attempt a brave face but the look in Alucard’s eyes tells him he is failing. He steps aside to allow the other man into the room. Another beat of silence as he closes the door. He wraps his arms around himself, fingers clutching at his clothes, his borrowed clothes that are still too big and too loose around his body. Not his in the way his own _ skin _ feels like it is not his.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. His voice is feeble in the quiet room. “I’ve ruined everyone’s evening, haven’t I?” Hector huffs something that might have been a laugh, were it not for the joyless ring to it. “I’ve ruined everything.”

“No.” Alucard tilts his head and his eyes look so sad, so somber. “None of this is your fault. It is _ mine. _I should have waited, I should have… told them the truth. Both of them.”

“It’s not your fault I… That I am…”

“My god, Hector, it is not _ yours_, either.”

Tears burn in his eyes. They nearly blind him, hot and hazy as they break over his cheeks. The room about them spins in great watercolor streaks, and when Alucard’s hands pull him close he all but falls into the blissful warmth of his arms. He lets himself be held as something breaks inside of him. Something brittle and raw, like shards of spun sugar sticking to his ribs and cutting him to ribbons. Hector hides his face in Alucard’s neck and _ wails. _

He screams. Howls. Clings to Alucard so hard that if he were entirely human it would surely leave bruises. Months of pain, of rage, of grief spill out of him like a wellspring, with a lifetime of loneliness and fear to follow. Alucard simply lets him. When Hector crumples and falls to his knees, Alucard goes down with him. He keeps him locked in their embrace, his arms a welcome weight Hector did not realize he needed until he felt them. His tears soak Alucard’s skin, soak through his shirt but he hardly seems to care. Alucard’s cheek presses into his own as he sobs and he is so warm it nearly undoes him all over again.

Later, after his cries have quieted, after Alucard has all but scooped the broken pieces of him off of the floor, Hector curls weakly into his bed and marvels at how utterly _ empty _ he feels. Alucard gives him something to take, something he says will help him to sleep. The revoltingly sweet flavor of it lingers on his tongue and reminds him of the cough syrup from before.

“Would you like me to stay?” Alucard asks him.

Hector nods his head. His voice feels like gravel in his throat. “Please. At least until I am asleep.”

And so Alucard stays. He wraps himself around Hector, not unlike he had earlier that afternoon. Hector buries himself in him as close as he can, tired and drained as he is. The heat of Alucard’s body is soothing. Like a balm to his fragmented mind, lips resting soft and dry at his temple healing in a way he never knew he needed. Hector thinks of Aria and Iri, how they had drawn themselves around him and thinks it is similar. The crystal around his wrist glints in the moonlight, and as it throws delicate reflections off of Alucard’s alabaster cheek Hector is so, so grateful he could die with it.

When he finally drifts into a heavy, dreamless sleep, it is to the clean, quiet scent of peonies and freshly fallen snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!! Please, please, please leave me a comment!!! They really do make my day, and help me to be inspired while writing the next chapters!!!!!


	18. Part XVIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment on the last chapter! You're all so sweet!!!!!! I'm trying to get as much of this story out as I can before the new season airs and everything I've written get's effectively retconned. I will still continue it after season 3 comes out, but for now please enjoy!!!
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [Enthralled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496005/chapters/53753908). It's definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Alucard wakes precisely at daybreak.

Dawn stutters grey and bleak through the slight crack in the curtains that dress Hector’s bedroom window. The man himself still sleeps soundly in Alucard’s arms. He has hardly moved all night. No doubt drained by all the chaos of the night before, it seems to have worn him through. There hasn’t been so much as a snore from him since he’d fallen into a fraught, weary slumber aided by the calming draught Alucard had given him. More for nerves than anything, it had succeeded in soothing his frazzled mind to allow him peace enough to fall asleep.

There is a familiar ache settling into the hinge of his jaws. It gnaws hungrily at the back of his skull. His bones feel heavy in his limbs as he sits up, muscles protesting in want of strength. He knows it to be thirst; knows it from the throb underneath his tongue and the itch in the roots of his teeth. It has slowly crept up to him in the past few days. He has managed to put it out of his mind in lieu of recent events: the arrival of two faeries and a forgemaster, Hector’s recovery, the departure of his faerie benefactors, the riddle on his heart that was _ Hector _ himself, and now the arrival of both Trevor and Sypha. His body is serving to remind him it will not be satisfied to wait for much longer. Alucard acknowledges the foregin sensation of fatigue in his body and makes a wry face with it.

Hector does not stir as he carefully pulls away. Alucard watches him for any sign of waking, but Hector simply turns his face further into the pillow. Alucard watches as he burrows deeper between the sheets, and on any other morning the sight would have been enough to make him smile. The debacle that had transpired during the previous evening, however, strips his heart of any levity.

Every word Hector had uttered during dinner streams through his head like a whirlwind. A deadly combination of anger, guilt, and grief churns lowly in his stomach. He looks at Hector’s sleeping face and remembers the hopeless, agonized cries that had rung throughout this room, a rueful chorus that had burned him to his very soul. He wonders if Hector had ever truly had to confront the pain housed inside him before then. God, what Alucard wouldn’t do to take it from him.

He stands, bare feet stepping quietly over the rug, and moves to the window. Alucard’s hands part the curtains just enough to look outside. The sky is only beginning to turn the frail and sickly lilac of early morning. Down below, he can see a broad figure walking its way down the path that leads into the woods. To the Belmont estate. Trevor’s gait is determined. Stern. Alucard wonders if the oaf truly had spent the night in his decrepit shithole of a house. He is nearly startled by just how little he cares.

Alucard looks back, to where Hector lies curled in his blankets and pillows. The thin frame of him seems to disappear under it all. They have made much progress with his health. It has taken months of care, weeks and weeks of carefully devised treatment plans. Alucard himself had spent many an hour fretting over medicine and calorie intake, trying desperately to afford Hector’s body what it had been so traumatically deprived of. Much of it has paid off. There is muscle density where there had once been naught but skin and bone, actual color to his complexion after so long without true sunlight. He takes comfort in knowing Hector’s health is slowly returning, but he knows there is still much progress to be made.

The healing of his body has been nothing compared to the challenge that will be healing his heart.

Alucard silently slips from the room. Still in his sleep wrinkled clothes from the day before, he navigates Castlevania’s halls until he reaches the kitchen. Though the table now sits unoccupied, cleared of last night’s cups and plates, the emotional carnage of it all still sits heavy upon the air. He swallows down a brief flare of bitter animosity, towards Belmont and towards himself. He is going to have to apologize to Sypha, many times over. It was unfair that she had been caught in the middle of all of this, and it is primarily his own doing.

He spends several minutes preparing a plate of cold, sliced fruit. A few he knows to be Hector’s favorites: some figs, a nectarine, and a handful of strawberries. He fills a chilled carafe with cool water, forgoing Hector’s usual tea for something that will actually hydrate him. He is still fast asleep by the time Alucard returns. While he would gladly let him remain that way, he knows full well how crucial Hector’s routine is to him. Sleeping too long will leave him feeling peculiar and out of sorts for the remainder of the day.

Alucard touches his shoulder, his thumb stroking gently over the linen of his shirt. Hector’s eyes slowly open, two crystalline shards of misty blue ringed with the shadows of hard sleep. He blinks them a few times in an effort to focus on Alucard’s face. The sheets begin to rustle around him as he sits up. He groans softly and presses his knuckles into his forehead.

“Good morning,” Alucard greets him in as quiet a voice as he can muster. Hector hums in answer. “How are you feeling?”

“My head aches.” He licks futilely at dry lips, face twisting into a grimace. The collar of his shirt has slipped over the ridge of his clavicle and Alucard resists the urge to reach over and fix it for him. “What is the hour?”

“Just after dawn.” He offers him the plate of fruit. Hector’s brows raise at the sight of it. He accepts it with a hushed expression of thanks. Alucard watches as he takes a slice of the nectarine and brings it to his mouth. It is a relief to see him eat something after having left his plate untouched the night before with all that had happened. Alucard pours him a cup of the water.

“Are you always up this early?”

“Occasionally. When the day promises to be particularly busy.” He takes a strawberry for himself. The give of the fruit’s flesh beneath his teeth does little to assuage the restlessness that plagues him, but it is a small relief. It is refreshingly sweet on his tongue.

“... I am sorry, for how I behaved last night.” Hector hangs his head, refusing to look Alucard in the eye. “I suppose it hardly makes for appropriate dinner conversation.”

“Hector, you have nothing to be sorry for. Trevor was trying to provoke you; to goad you into a reaction. You can hardly be blamed for defending yourself.”

“I never wanted _ anyone _ to know. Especially not you.” A sad laugh flutters past his lips. “God, what any of you must think of me now.”

“I think you have survived, Hector.” Finally, he is gifted with the sight of his eyes in all their sad, blue uncertainty. Alucard does not reach for him. He would prefer the sentiment to be accompanied by truth rather than comfort. “I think you have been made to endure a hell that was made to destroy you. I cannot fathom the pain that has imbued such resilience; I only wish you had never known it. I will never ask for more of your story than you are willing to share, but please understand I will _ never _ think less of you for it.”

“... Thank you.”

A moment of silent understanding passes between them. Alucard yearns to take Hector into his arms, to chase away the worry that creases his brow, but he refrains. He understands that some things are not so easily remedied. 

“Are you going into the village?”

Alucard shakes his head. “Not today. There is much to be done here in the castle.”

“I shall try to keep out of your way, then.” Hector smiles sadly. “I suppose there should be something in the garden to occupy me.”

“That reminds me,” Alucard says mournfully. He pours Hector some of the water, encouraging him to drink it. “There is something we need to discuss.”

Quiet terror flashes over Hector’s face. “What is it?” he asks, and the waver in his voice makes Alucard preemptively regret what he is about to say.

“With the news of a bounty out for you, I don’t think it wise for you to leave the castle on your own anymore.”

“... You cannot be serious.”

Alucard tries to touch Hector’s hand, but he rips it away. He looks at him with hurt, disbelieving eyes. “I assure you, I would not ask this of you if I didn’t think it absolutely necessary.”

“So you are just going to keep me in here? Locked away in this castle?” Fingers curl tensely in Hector’s blankets, their knuckles bone white in their grip.

“Hector, please don’t do this.”

“Do _ what?” _ he spits, and Alucard can recognize the panic mounting in him. He can smell it as it clouds the air around them. “You mean to make a prisoner of me. _ Again. _I survived one cell only to be thrown back into another. What next, Alucard? Do you mean to collar me as well? To chain me by it so that I cannot leave?” Hector’s mouth falls open as a thought occurs to him, and Alucard knows it is a damning one. “Was what Belmont said true?”

He takes Hector’s face between his hands, moving so quickly he does not have time to react. Hector stares as he is pulled forward. A startled breath escapes him and Alucard breathes it in, impassioned desperation sitting at the tip of his tongue.

_ “None _ of what Belmont said is true,” he says quietly, and the dark gravity of his voice stuns Hector into silence. “Do you understand me? None of it.” He waits with bated breath, closely watches for the frenzy to dissipate from Hector’s expression. When he finally nods his answer, tears of relief burn behind Alucard’s eyes. “I will never lock you behind any door, not for as long as I live. Do you understand?”

“… Yes.”

_ You are not a prisoner here. This castle is not a cage, and I am not your jailor. _

“I will not force you to heed my request, but I will _ beg _ you if I have to.” The declaration shakes him nearly as much as he suspects it does Hector. His heart feels wet and heavy behind his breastbone, like an overripe cherry. “As it stands, you could walk out of these doors one day, Hector, and someone could snatch you away, before I or anyone else would know any better. They’ll drag you back to Carmilla, back to her castle and her depravity, and I will die before I see it happen. Do you hear me?”

“Alucard—”

“She will not have you,” he hisses. A sob catches in his throat. “She will take no more of you than she already has. And I will not lose you.” _ I cannot. _

A profound, weighted silence blankets the space between them. A trembling sigh makes its way past Alucard’s lips. Hector tilts his face forward, so that his forehead gently touches his own and Alucard presses his lips into his cheek to hide the fact that his own are wet with tears. It does not work.

“You will come with me?” Hector asks him. “Outside the castle, or to the garden? Whenever I ask?”

“I will,” he promises. “Whenever you ask.” _ You do not belong in the dark. _

“Very well, then.”

Relief floods his blood, like a tranquilizer. He kisses Hector then and realizes that, amongst all the discord they have seen in the past few days, he had sorely missed this. Hector’s mouth, the smell of his skin, the warmth of his body are a salve to his very soul and as Alucard allows himself the luxury of this man’s lips, it _ petrifies _ him. He has never had this before. Someone to hold, someone to protect. Someone to fight for. And fight he would, for if Carmilla should ever come knocking for the forgemaster she’d stolen, he would rend the world asunder beneath her very feet.

Suddenly, his father’s madness no longer seems so implausible.

“Alucard.”

Hector’s voice tears him from himself. Alucard sits up, suddenly aware of just how lost he’d grown. Hector looks at him curiously, and when he tenderly reaches up to touch Alucard’s face, his eyes nearly flutter at the lingering warmth.

“Yes?”

“Are you all right?” The thumb that tracks itself over his cheekbone distracts him. “You feel cold to the touch. And you look paler than normal.”

Alucard is at a loss for what to say. He has no idea how to explain to a traumatized man with fang marks still scarring his throat that it is because he can hardly even remember the last time it was he fed. He thinks of his mother’s blood, the phials of it still locked away in the cold storage of her laboratory, and his stomach roils. Perhaps someday it will hurt less. Someday, when her death is still not raw and fresh upon his heart, when the pain of it all is a distant memory. But that time is not now, and the supply is finite. He will cope while he still can.

“I think we are all more than a bit fatigued after the events of yesterday,” he says to Hector, because it is not a lie. It is simply not the truth, and while one would think he had learned his lesson before, this is one more secret he will swallow for himself until the time is right. If it ever is.

“You’re not falling ill?” Hector asks. He tilts his head. _ “Can _ you fall ill?”

“Not to my knowledge.” He leans into the heat of Hector’s palm. His eyes slowly slide shut. “I am fine. You need not worry about me.” He nudges the yet forgotten plate of sliced fruit towards Hector. “Eat something,” he encourages. “We’ll be resuming your swordsmanship lessons this afternoon. I made a promise to Iri that I would keep up with your training while she was away.”

Hector takes a measured bite from one of the figs. He pouts as he chews, eyes moving towards the window where daylight has broken over the horizon. “It looks as though it might rain,” he says petulantly.

“Hmm.” Alucard takes another strawberry for himself. “Perhaps if you are lucky.”

Hector opens his mouth in rebuttal, but Alucard quietens him with another kiss. When he pulls away, his lips taste of sweet, cold fruit.

* * *

Hector, as it turns out, is indeed lucky. It does rain. With his swordplay lessons postponed for a day with clearer skies, he has much of the day to himself. He spends much of it reading in the library, Cezar tucked closely at his side. The rain is a cozy patter against the castle windows that seems to enclose him like a quilt. He is blessedly left unbothered in his attempts to distract himself from the turmoil of the night before.

At some point during the afternoon, his stomach serves to remind him that fruit in the morning is not a suitable meal to sustain oneself for the entire day. He closes his books to make for the kitchens, quietly humming to himself a sweet, lilting melody the girls used to sing. Cezar trots happily at his side.

There is a leftover loaf of bread on the verge of turning stale with which he decides to build his lunch. He finds a wedge of cheese and some cured meat, as well as a couple more figs to add to his plate. The kettle glares at him from its unassuming place on the stove. Hector considers it for a moment, recalling the substantial lack of tea at breakfast, and decides to fill it with water.

He nibbles idly at his cold lunch while he waits for his water to boil. Cezar sniffs at the air, doubtlessly after a whiff of his food. For the life of him, Hector cannot recall Cezar having begged in the past as much as he did now. He paws insistently at Hector’s leg, tongue lolling expectantly out of his mouth. He wonders if perhaps Alucard had been indulging him with treats or table scraps in his absence. Someone had to have.

He is so engrossed in his train of thought that he hardly notices any sound at the door before it swings open, and suddenly Trevor Belmont is standing at the threshold of the kitchen, sleeves rolled up over his burly arms and eyes wide as he stares at Hector. Hector freezes. He nearly drops the small sliver of cheese in his hand, much to Cezar’s disappointment. The dog seems to forget about him entirely, though, as his lone blue gaze falls upon Belmont. He _ runs _ to him, yipping excitedly. 

“Cezar!” Hector scolds him, but his dog hardly seems to hear him over his own excitement. Sour tension swirls in his gut at the sight of the hunter. The overwhelming instinct to run threatens to undo him as he realizes his only route for escape, the door, lies past Belmont.

“I didn’t realize anyone else was in here,” he mutters brusquely.

“Get out.”

The coldness of his own voice startles him. Belmont blinks in bewilderment. Cezar continues to bark, spinning in circles at his feet.

“I…” Belmont’s words seem to fail him as he meets the indignation in Hector’s eyes. Hector trembles where he stands, wrought with silent rage. “Can we talk?”

“I have nothing to say to you.” He crosses his arms defensively. “Now leave me be.”

“Listen, at least allow me to say my piece, and—”

“You’ve had your _ piece, _Belmont.”

“—and I shall leave you be.”

As though sensing Hector’s unease at the lack of an exit, he skirts the edge of the room to move away from the door. Belmont sits awkwardly at one of the kitchen chairs, his hands spread flat over the surface of the table. Hector has half a mind to run, to leave his lunch and his kettle and his unmade tea behind. Where would he go after? To hide away in his bedroom? To find Alucard? His mind whirls as his feet remain rooted to the spot. He carefully watches Belmont.

“I owe you an apology,” he begins, and something bitter spikes its way up the back of Hector’s throat. Cezar grows quiet, sensing his master’s unease, though he still continues to paw at Belmont’s ankle.

“I don’t want your apology,”

“… Right. Cannot totally say that I blame you for that.” He clears his throat nervously. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know any of… the details, but regardless, what I said was inexcusable. I was being an ass. Truth be told, I was angry at having been kept out of the loop. At the thought that Alucard couldn’t trust me with something like this. That has nothing to do with you, though, and in the end I guess he was right.”

A stiff silence passes between them, as though Belmont were giving him the chance to respond. There is a number of things Hector wants to say to that. Many things, many names he would like to call Trevor Belmont to his face. When he does not respond, Belmont continues.

“Again, I’m sorry. Alucard obviously trusts you. I don’t know why, but so long as he does that should have been good enough for me.”

“He doesn’t fuck me,” Hector says lowly. “Not that it is _ any _ of your business.”

“You’re right; it’s not.” Belmont rubs uncomfortably at the back of his neck. “I don’t expect you to forgive me; I suppose I don’t really have the right to ask for that. I’m saying all of this because… I wronged you, and it is the decent thing to do.”

Hector is angry, and he is hurt, and while he is terrified by the man before him he is brave enough to admit that he can appreciate the sentiment. Perhaps more so, once the initial heat of the encounter has worn off. For now he simply stares back in stony silence.

“I paid a visit to my family’s house this morning,” Belmont tells him, and Hector holds his tongue over a remark as to how it could hardly be called a house anymore. “I saw the garden. I’ve heard you’re the one responsible for restoring it?”

“... Yes.”

“Thank you.” He says the words with such emotion, such sincerity that Hector is taken aback. “My mother loved that garden. I think it would make her happy, to know her flowers were still being looked after.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Hector snaps, and he almost regrets it.

“I know.” Belmont smiles sadly at him. “Thank you all the same.”

Cezar lets out a sharp, ringing bark, no longer content to be ignored. Belmont looks down at him. He holds his hands out as if to prove they are empty.

“I have nothing for you, boy,” he says exasperatedly. He reaches down to pet Cezar and receives a happy lick for his trouble. “So he was yours all along?”

“Yes,” Hector answers. “His name is Cezar.”

“Suppose that’s better than Sirius. Jesus.”

Belmont stands. Hector watches as he makes for the door, counting the seconds until he is finally left alone.

“For what it’s worth,” he says over a broad shoulder, and Hector nearly rolls his eyes. “I regret what I said, about you deserving all of it. I’d like to take it back, if I could. You didn’t. Nobody deserves that.”

And with that he is gone. Hector leans against the counter, stunned in the wake of Belmont’s last admission. A lump works its way up his throat, and he tries to swallow it down but to no avail. His eyes grow misty the longer he stands there.

Hector stubbornly wipes at the tears that slip down his face. Cezar whimpers at his feet. The kettle whistles on the stove.

* * *

“There have been more night creatures spotted in the west. They’ve thinned out considerably here in Wallachia since your father’s death, but either they’ve migrated out over Hungary and towards Austria, or someone is creating more.”

Alucard’s head pounds. His eyes ache behind their lids. He attempts to drown it all out in an attempt to focus on the news Trevor is relaying to him, but it is difficult. “That will be Carmilla,” he tells them. “She was forcing Hector to forge her more devils. It’s why she took him in the first place.” There is no hiding the note of contempt that colors his words. “The rest must be flocking to her in want of direction. There are no masters left for them here in Wallachia, so they look elsewhere.”

“Could she have found someone else to do it?” Sypha asks.

“That is highly unlikely.” Alucard shakes his head. “My father searched the globe for both Hector and Isaac, and Carmilla does not have the luxury of a moving castle. Devil forging is a rare gift, even more rarely perfected, so the chances of her happening upon another forgemaster are slim.”

“What of the other one?” Belmont posits. “Isaac? Could she have gotten her paws on him?”

“I do not know. But what little I have learned of him leads me to believe he would… not comply.”

“And we have no way of knowing where he would be.” Sypha rests her chin in her hand, the study’s fireplace painting her in a warm glow. “You said you saw him that night, Alucard, when we took the castle.”

“Yes, but only briefly. There was no trace of him in the aftermath, living or dead.”

“He has to be somewhere,” Trevor insists. “He could hardly have just disappeared into thin air.”

Alucard eyes the broken pieces of the mirror that sit in the corner. “I would not be so sure of that,” he mutters. He has spent many an hour attempting to get it working again, but to no avail. While Dracula taught his son several of the secrets to his castle, there were many he simply took to his grave with him. It could take him years to decipher them. Centuries, even.

“That brings us to the bounty.”

Alucard looks at Trevor, hoping his eyes do not relay the sudden panic that grips him. “What have you heard?”

“There is a price out for Dracula’s former forgemaster, and the faerie that took him. Him they want strictly alive; the bounty goes up every few weeks or so, so I assume Carmilla’s still looking for him.” He leans against the bookshelf, arms crossed casually over his chest. “Right now there is a thousand gold reward just for any _ evidence _ as to where he’s gone. Can’t say for certain what the reward for Hector himself is right now, but I’d say it’s very high.”

“That would rule out the possibility she’s found a new forgemaster entirely.” Sypha bites nervously at her bottom lip. “Which means…”

“Which means it is only a matter of time until she pieces it together that he’s here in the castle,” Trevor finishes for her. “If she hasn’t already.”

“She will not attempt to storm the castle directly,” Alucard drawls. “Carmilla is much too intelligent to attempt something so rash. Even with the months that have passed since Braila and the meager horde she managed to prise out of Hector, she hasn’t the numbers for a full blown assault. Not on this castle.” _ Let her be foolish enough to come, _he thinks bitterly. He would rip the heart from her chest and force her to watch it beat its last.

“No; but she might send scouts after him. Or spies.”

“You suspect she would infiltrate the village?”

“I can’t say for certain. But if any of her people would try to keep a low profile, I’d imagine they would try to steer clear of humans, beyond needing a food source. They’ll try to avoid being found out. If I were one of them, the last thing I would want right now is Dracula’s son onto me.”

“How did he get here, Alucard?”

Alucard digs his fingers into his temple, trying to string together an answer that will convey the mad circumstances that brought Hector to his doorstep without going too far down the rabbit hole. “It was two faeries that took him from Carmilla,” he tells her. “They brought him to me in early spring. He was severely malnourished and nearly dead with pneumonia.”

“They cannot be from Wallachia,” Trevor says. “There are no Fae in this country, which means they’ve traveled from somewhere else. Why?”

“Ironically enough, for the archives beneath your estate.”

Trevor groans. _ “Christ, _ but I do not look forward to dealing with faeries.”

“They’re wingless,” he reassures him, though he does not miss the slight frown or the clench of Trevor’s jaw. “So you needn’t worry yourself about giving them your name or answering their riddles.”

“Wingless?” Sypha asks.

“As in someone’s cut the wings from their backs,” Trevor answers for her. Her eyes go wide, horrified. “Someone from the church, if I were to guess. They’re still powerful, still capable of faerie magics, but little more than human in almost every other regard.”

“So where are they now?”

“Traveling north. They’re searching for something; some_one. _That is initially how they found Hector. There were rumours of someone in Carmilla’s castle that was raising the dead, and they thought it was whoever they were missing.”

“And they took him anyway.” She tilts her head in interest, the same way she always does when excited at the prospect of learning something new. “Will they be back? I would like to meet them.”

“Some time in autumn.”

“By which we will endeavor to be _ long _ gone.” Sypha pouts at Trevor’s declaration. He pretends not to see it. “In that case, if we’re finished here then I’m going to see if the wards around the estate are still functional. I’ve got a few traps of my own I’m eager to see planted, as well.” The hunter stretches, raising his arms high over his head with a satisfying _ crack_. “Best get to it before the sun goes down.”

Alucard’s eyes follow Trevor as he leaves the room, and the lingering animosity he feels toward him has yet to abate. He says nothing as Sypha approaches his chair, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

“He is sorry, Alucard,” she tells him, and he turns his head. “And he does feel guilty. I urged him this morning to find Hector and try to make things right, but I suspect he was already planning to.”

“Was he, now?”

“He was, in fact. He told me they met in the kitchen earlier today. You don’t give him enough credit.” She squeezes his shoulder. Alucard leans into her touch, his eyes sliding shut with the fatigue coursing through his nerves. “You’d be proud of him, I think. He hasn’t been drinking, not like he used to at least.”

“Now _ that _ is something.” Alucard scoffs. “Sypha, I…” His throat constricts around the words, as though it chokes him to say them. “You did not see Hector when he first arrived. It has been a long, long journey to where he is now, and Trevor very nearly tore it all down in one evening.”

“Now, I am not so sure of that.” She chuckles faintly. “Trevor can be nasty when he wants to, but I’d say Hector gave just as good as he got. I’ve never seen anyone shut Trevor’s mouth so quickly with words alone.”

At that, the grim line of Alucard’s mouth begins to curve into a smile. “He can be fierce at times,” he murmurs, and the fond rush the thought inspires in him is overwhelming.

“Tell me more about him,” Sypha implores. She kneels at the side of his chair, her hands folding to clasp over the armrest. “He sounds interesting.”

“Hector is…” Alucard rests his chin in his hand, attempting to hide the grin that threatens to split his face in two. “He is remarkably brilliant. He throws himself into everything he does, no matter how small a task, and learns very quickly. Sometimes I think he makes a better study than I ever did.”

“You teach him?”

“I try. He’s taken up chemistry, to help me mix medicines for the people in the village. In truth I think he’s probably taught himself more than I have. He can also be stubborn, at times, immovably so. And he feels things very deeply. I…” He struggles to find the right words, gazing intently into the fire as though looking there for inspiration. “There is so much more to him than my father’s journals ever entailed. Each day, I learn something new and it _ astonishes _ me. He astonishes me.”

“Oh, _ Alucard.” _Sypha gapes joyfully at him, breathing in a soft gasp. She touches her lips in surprise. “You love him, don’t you?”

“What?”

“You do.” She rests her cheek on her knuckles. “I can see it in your eyes, when you talk about him. You are utterly besotted.”

Her brazen declaration staggers him. It shocks him even more so to realize that she is _ right _. What else could he call what he felt for Hector but love? When he smiles, Alucard’s heart races. When he cries, it breaks. The way he takes his tea, a spoonful of honey with a slice of lemon. The sound of his voice after he has just woken up, still thick and low with sleep. The freckles that span the width of his cheekbones, so faint that Alucard sometimes leans in for a kiss just to afford himself a closer look. All of these things he loves about Hector. All that and so much more. 

“Do _ not _ tell Trevor,” he beseeches her, and Sypha smiles so wide and beautifully at him he cannot help but return it.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her hand reaches for his at the same time she leans up to kiss his cheek. As her lips touch his skin, she makes a quiet sound of surprise. When she pulls away her brow is creased with concern. “Alucard, you are _ freezing.” _ The backs of her knuckles find his forehead before he has the chance to dodge, and he knows such poor reaction time is uncharacteristic of him. “Have you been feeding?”

“I…”

“Don’t lie to me, Tepes.”

“... Not regularly.”

“What’s the matter? Do you need blood? I can—”

“No, Sypha.” He shakes his head. “That is not necessary; there is blood here in the castle. I have simply been busy, and it must have slipped my mind. But thank you. You are an excellent friend.”

“Are you sure?”

A soft knock on the study door startles them both. Sypha stands from where she was crouched on the floor and Alucard murmurs a quiet “come in,” half expecting Trevor to appear again. Instead it is Hector. Sypha shoots him a knowing grin.

“I should go and help Trevor,” she tells them. Her next words are directed to Alucard. “My offer still stands, just so you know, should you change your mind.”

“Thank you, Sypha,” he says to her back as she leaves. The door shuts behind her. Hector’s face is tense with worry. Alucard’s heart hammers sluggishly in his chest. “How much of that did you happen to hear?” he asks, his tongue a leaden weight in his mouth.

“I heard you say you have not been feeding.” He presses his palm to Alucard’s face, and he breathes the tiniest sigh at the heat of his hand. “Is that why you felt cold this morning? Why you feel even colder now?”

“It is.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

“I did not want to worry you.” _ Because you have your own burdens to shoulder. Because I am used to enduring this on my own. Because the collar of your shirt does not quite hide the scars at your throat. _

“Well, I am worried now.” Hector trails his fingers through Alucard’s hair. His eyes flutter to a close as they gently pass over his scalp. “How bad is it? Please be honest with me.”

“There are headaches.” He draws his tongue over dry, chapped lips. “They come and go. It is the same with the fatigue.”

“If there is blood in the castle, why won’t you take it?”

“Because it is my mother’s.” His voice breaks over the truth. His eyes flood with searing tears behind their lids, and he does not have the strength to contend with this right now. “And the taste of it fills me with so much pain that I cannot bear to drink it. The very same reason my father went an entire _ year _ without it himself.”

The portrait of Lisa Tepes gazes down at him from its place on the wall. His mother’s beautiful face, with her gentle eyes and warm smile, is of little comfort to him now. Hector pulls him towards his body and Alucard goes. He hates the way he seems to sap the heat from him, like a greedy leech. He hates the way he can smell the blood in his veins, can taste each beat of his pulse in the air.

“Alucard,” Hector whispers to him and he predicts the words before they leave his mouth. “You can take mine.”

“No.” The silvery pink scars that mar the skin of Hector’s neck glare at him in the firelight. Alucard can still remember when they were relatively fresh; when they still bled red and free. “I will not.”

“You have done so much for me that I will never be able to repay. You have saved my _ life. _Please, let me do this for you.”

“Hector, you have no idea what you are offering. Please don’t.”

“I will gladly, if it means I don’t have to see you suffer.”

Alucard pulls him down by his shirt. He smothers Hector’s misplaced offer with a kiss, completely at a loss for what else to do. He will not hear Hector attempt to give up more of himself after so much has already been taken from him. He will not be the one to _ take _ it. He can see Hector’s teeth digging into his bottom lip as he pulls away. He seems dazed; stunned.

“We will… discuss this another time, I think.”

_ You stubborn man, _ Alucard wants to tell him, but he simply kisses him again instead to keep him quiet. _ You stubborn, wonderful, beautiful man. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!! Please leave a comment with some feedback if you can!!! They really go a long way in helping motivate me to keep writing :)


	19. Part XIX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the great comments on the last chapter! I just want to say I worked very hard on this one, and I really hope you guys think it is as good as I tried to make it. Please enjoy :)
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [Enthralled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496005/chapters/53753908). It's definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

“No, Cezar.”

The little dog squirms where he sits, gazing up at Hector with his singular, pleading eye. He gives a bereft whimper, scratching once with his skeletal paw at the leg of the laboratory stool Hector sits upon.

Hector sighs. He’s only been at work for half an hour at the most, in the midst of preparing an experimental batch of antibiotic cultures. Alucard had spent the last several days attempting to isolate a new strain that might prove more effective, and Hector had agreed to aid him in setting up some different algal swabs. In fact, Alucard himself had agreed to join him, but has yet to appear. Something must have detained him. Perhaps he had run into Sypha or Belmont on his way. It was possible he simply lost track of time, though Hector finds that highly unlikely.

He is going to get very little work done, however, with Cezar posing such a distraction. He must have forgotten to close the door properly. A sharp and demanding bark rings against the walls of the laboratory.

“None of that, please,” he scolds. “Whatever it is you want, it will have to wait until I’m finished here.”

Hector is nearly finished with one of the petri dishes, having diligently swabbed it in differing quadranted patterns, when there is a decidedly strong _ tug _ at the leg of his trousers. It nearly dislodges him from his seat, and he has to grab at the table to avoid toppling to the floor. Cezar whines at him from behind a mouthful of his clothes.

“What has gotten _ into _ you?” he mutters exasperatedly, and receives an insistent growl in answer. As he stands to straighten himself, meaning to properly label and put away the dish in his hand, Cezar suddenly dashes towards the door. He looks back at Hector, as though anticipating to be followed. That catches his attention.

“This had better be important,” he grouses, making to put away everything he’d been working on.

Hector checks to make sure all of his specimens are correctly marked and stowed away in the appropriate storage. He washes his hands before leaving the room, locking the door behind himself. Cezar jumps ahead of him every few steps, yapping all the while.

He is led up several flights of stairs, to a part of the castle he has never really visited before. The door they finally stop in front of is slightly ajar. There are pry marks in the frame, holes that look as though they had been hammered in with nails. Hector hesitates for the barest moment, speculating as to what could be in the room beyond. Curiosity wins out over reluctance. Cezar pants, looking up at him expectantly. He slowly pushes the door open.

It is a bedroom. A child’s bedroom. There are shelves, dressed with books and artifacts and little keepsakes that must have meant something to someone small. A basket filled with toys sits in one of the corners, and they all look to have been made by hand. Pictures hang upon the walls, drawings and maps and notes proudly put up for all to see. Upon the ceiling is a hand-painted likeness of the night sky. Constellations and falling stars almost seem to shimmer upon an inky blue background.

In the center of the room sits a small four poster bed. One of the posts had been ripped away to leave splintered wood where it had once been. The blue and white rug under his feet is little more than a collection of scorched tatters. The portrait on the wall catches his eyes. It is centered between two windows, each with its panes entirely blown out. The jagged remnants of glass glitter like diamonds in the daylight. In a gilded frame hangs a likeness of the Tepes family. Lisa Tepes, every bit as beautiful and kind as the portrait in Dracula’s study, lovingly cradling what can only be a tiny Alucard in her arms. The child smiles cheerfully at him, a lock of her golden hair clasped in his small fist. Vlad Dracula Tepes stands serenely over the both of them; over his family. One great, clawed hand is draped proudly over his infant son’s shoulder. Hector had never seen him look so content in life. So happy.

How would his life had been different, he wonders, if he’d had this? If his parents had loved him enough to make him toys, or put his accomplishments up on the walls. He’d never even had a bedroom; as a child, he’d slept next to the hearth to keep warm. He looks at Lisa Tepes’s gentle face and thinks of his own mother. A bitter woman married to a man she despised with a child she’d never wanted, a son she’d been convinced was _ wrong. _It is not jealousy that he feels towards Alucard, for the family he’d ultimately lost. It is grief. Hector reaches with outstretched fingers, as though to touch the painted canvas. They hover near this unfamiliar face of Dracula’s.

“This is where he died.”

He pulls his hand back as though it’s been burned. Hector whirls around on his heel, startled at the sound of a familiar voice. Alucard sits at the drafting table in the corner, near the door. His eyes are red, his pale face gleaming with tears. He seems listless; despondent. It aches low in Hector’s chest to see the vacant and pained expression he’s given. Cezar whimpers from the doorway, slowly padding inside. He noses sadly at his limp hands. Alucard looks at Hector, and he has never seen him so miserable.

“He was going to kill me. I could see it in his eyes. I was so tired, _ so _ frightened, and then he just… stopped.”

Hector takes a step towards him. Then he takes another. Another and another until he stands before Alucard and the distance between them is gone. Alucard blinks, long lashes soaked through over his cheekbones.

“I ripped the post from the bed, and he watched me. It felt like the first time he’d truly looked at me, since my mother died. He watched me as I struggled to stand up, as I held up the post. And then I ran it straight through to his _ heart.” _

It is the first he has ever heard Alucard speak of the night his father had died. Hector looks back to the blackened rug, the shattered windows, and the broken bed post. The portrait of a family fractured twice over. He cannot help but think that every word from Alucard’s mouth sounds so much like a dying man confessing his last sins on his deathbed. Wet, golden eyes close in the wake of his admission.

Hector kneels.

He goes to his knees in front of where Alucard sits, his face buried in his hands. Hector reaches for him. His skin, pale and flawless in the light that filters through broken windows, is frigid to the touch. He gently pries his wrists away so that he can see the tears as they fall, heavy over the tip of his nose, the bow of his lips, and the angle of his jaw.

“Alucard, I am sorry.”

“For what, Hector?” he asks. “For my mother’s murder at the will of an ignorant church? For the patricide I committed with my own two hands?”

The bite to his words is empty; there’s no heart behind it. “No,” he answers softly, and as he swipes his thumb through the tear tracks sprawling over an alabaster cheek, Alucard flinches. “I am sorry that you carry this pain with you. That I did not see it before.”

Alucard breathes a great, shuddering sigh. His chest heaves with it. The long scar that spans his torso peers out from his opened collar, jarring and gruesome in the light. Hector longs to touch it. To soothe his hand over it, as though he were gifted with the power to heal instead of resurrect. For a moment, he wishes he had been.

“We each have our own anguish to bear. I would not burden you with my own.”

“Alucard,” he whispers, with all the sincerity he is capable of, “it would _ not _ be a burden.”

Another wave of tears wells fast and sharp. Hector wraps his arms around Alucard’s shoulders and hugs him close. Alucard buries his face in his neck. His skin is so, so cold but he does not shy away from it. His nose finds a home in long, blond hair, his lips against the shell of Alucard’s ear.

Alucard does not howl like Hector had, when their roles were reversed and he had been the one falling to pieces. He does not even make a sound. His tears are silent, robed in the form of quaking, breathy sobs that he smothers into the warmth of Hector’s body. He clings to him with trembling hands, as though he were unsure if this was something he had the right to allow himself. Hector holds him tighter.

“Let me help you,” he whispers to him. He feels Alucard’s head shake in response.

“No,” he says defiantly. “Enough has been taken from you, I won’t—”

“You are taking nothing. I would give it to you.”

_ “No, _Hector.”

“Adrian.” At the sound of his name, Alucard falls deathly quiet. He pulls away from Hector’s embrace, fixing him with sad eyes. “You are not well. There is no sense in torturing yourself like this. Not when I am here and _ willing_. Take my blood. I’m offering it to you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then for god’s sake, explain it to me.”

“It is not so _ simple, _Hector,” he murmurs. “Blood taken from an unwilling victim is one thing, but blood freely given is…” Alucard sighs, lost for the right words. “It is intimate; deeply so. Especially between two people… involved, as we are. It can be overwhelming, and the very last thing I want is to ask too much of you too quickly.”

“So you presume to make these decisions for me, then?”

Alucard’s lips part as though to say something in rebuttal, but the impact of Hector’s words seems to strip his own from his tongue. He gapes for a moment. Cold fingers linger at his throat, timidly skating over the raised, pink scars that sit there. Alucard takes a sharp, painful breath. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Do you plan to hurt me?”

“No,” is the answer. “Never.”

“Then I trust that you won’t. I trust _ you.” _ He curves his palm over Alucard’s frigid cheek, watching as he leans into the touch. “You have helped me in ways I will never be able to thank you for. You have saved my life, when you had every reason to cast me aside. Let me do this so that I might repay you for it.”

“Hector, you owe me nothing—”

“Then let me do this because I _ care. _Because you are a good man, and you do not deserve to suffer like this.”

At last, Alucard does not protest. He drops his head in acquiescence and Hector lays a tender kiss at his temple. He lingers there for a moment, as though trying to lend as much of his body heat as he can through that one frail point of contact.

“This ends now,” he murmurs. “I will come to you tonight. Yes?”

He kisses Hector, and that in itself is answer enough. Hector lets himself be savored this way. He closes his eyes at the gentle pressure of Alucard’s lips, at the sweet clasp of a hand to the back of his head. When he pulls away, he does so reluctantly.

He stands up, stretching a hand out to Alucard. He takes it, and Hector helps him to his feet.

“Let us find you something warm to drink,” he offers, and the fingers that twine together with his own are a relief. Cezar rushes to trot along beside them as they take their leave of the room. The door closes behind them, and Hector hopes that the next time it opens it will be to happier times.

* * *

Evening falls in a darkening curtain around the castle. The singing insects outside announce the oncoming night in a symphony that nearly drowns out just how loud Hector’s own heart sounds in his ears. He fiddles absentmindedly with the crystal dangling around his wrist as he navigates the hallways towards Alucard’s bedroom.

In truth, he was not entirely sure how to go about preparing for what was about to happen. He eats what he can manage on a nervous stomach. He bathes, softening his skin with the same oil he always uses. He puts on comfortable clothes, settling on a dark, cotton shirt with a wide collar. The less chance for a mess, the better, he supposes. It would not do to walk back through the halls with bloodstains in his clothes, lest he run into Belmont or Sypha at some point. Properly clean and dressed, he leaves Cezar snoring away in the center of his bed.

He realizes as he approaches the door that he has never before been inside Alucard’s bedroom. Alucard had been inside his own several times, and for many different reasons. Whether it was to deliver medicine, to check on his health, or for the episode that had occurred several nights ago, he was no stranger to Hector’s personal space. This, however, was uncharted territory.

He raises his knuckles to gently rap at the old, dark wood. Hector listens for a sound but he does not hear any before the door opens. Alucard’s face greets him on the other side. He is still handsome, still inhumanly beautiful, but he does not look well. Dark bags threaten to swallow up tired, golden eyes. His face seems sunken, and somehow even more pale. Hector offers him a soft smile, heartened to see it returned, if weakly.

“Hello,” he murmurs, because the simple contentment at seeing Alucard’s face has rendered him nearly speechless.

“Hello.” There is a subtle hesitation in the way Alucard moves. As though he were second guessing himself every moment of this encounter. Perhaps he is. He steps back, allowing enough room for Hector to slip past the door. “Come in, please.”

As he steps into the room, Hector is struck by how elegant it all seems. The furnishings in his own room are comfortable, well made and very fine, but as he gazes at the silk canopy over the elaborate bed frame, at the gleaming wooden desk in the corner and the plush chairs in front of the fire, he is enchanted. There are a few belongings here and there: books atop the bedside tables, documents and letters on the desk, a small collection of bottles and phials on a neatly organized shelf. All of it is tidily kept and strictly in order. The room itself is gorgeous.

Alucard shuts the door behind him, keeping himself at an awkward distance. He clasps his hands nervously at his middle and clears his throat politely. “Would you like something to drink?” he offers. “There is a bottle of wine. A pinot noir.”

“I’ll take a glass.”

As Alucard makes to uncork the bottle, he looks glad to have something to busy himself with. He pours them each a glass, the deep red of the wine filling the flawless crystal. Hector accepts it with a grateful sound. The first sip is sharp on his palate. The acidity of it sticks below his tongue, bright notes of cherry and similar red fruits at the tip. A thought strikes him as he drinks. “I’m curious. Can you become intoxicated?” he asks.

“No,” Alucard answers, and promptly tilts his head back to drain the entire glass of its contents in one swallow. Hector watches in silent awe. “I… Before we do this, there is something I would ask you, Hector.”

“What is it?” is his timid response.

“When you… received those scars,” he says, eyes flickering to the marks at Hector’s throat, “do you remember what it felt like?”

He suddenly clutches at the glass in his hand so tightly he worries it may shatter. Memories shutter vividly at his mind’s eye, and he wishes he could banish them back from whatever dam has just cracked in his head. Miron’s hand fisted in his hair, threatening to tear it out at the roots. Miron’s body above his, crushing the air from his drowning lungs. Miron’s teeth gnawing their way at his throat, ripping at his skin and taking greedily from his flesh. 

“It hurt,” he answers, and his voice is small. Fragile. “It… hurt. _ So _badly.” It had been agony. Another violation he’d never be able to shake. The scar at his neck burns, and he swallows down the fear rising over the back of his tongue. Another part of his body that did not feel entirely like his own anymore. “I thought I was going to die.”

“I need you to understand, before anything else, that this will _ not _ be the same.”

Alucard offers him his hand. Gloveless, his thin fingers white and glowing in the soft light of the fire. His palm is a breathtaking map of lines. Hector reaches for him and surprises himself when he does not flinch away from how cold his skin feels against his own. Alucard’s thumb is a welcome pressure at his knuckles.

“I will not hurt you,” he promises. “I swear it. Whatever has been done to you, whatever pain you have had to suffer… That is not what we do here in this room, together.”

_ Together. _

Hector nods slowly.

“If you change your mind, if you wish to stop, then we will stop. I will take no more than I need, nor will I take more than you can comfortably afford to lose. And I will never take more than you are willing to give.”

“How is it different?” Hector asks him, because he needs to know. “How will it feel different?”

“For one,” Alucard drawls, a dark edge to his words, “I will not endeavor to maim you with my teeth. The vampire who did that to you,” he points at Hector’s neck, “was doing their best to inflict as much pain as possible.”

The same bitter hatred that had plagued his every waking moment so many months ago threatens to resurface. Hector clenches his jaw against it. He takes another swallow of wine, and it sours in his mouth. “But this will be different.”

“Yes. To give your blood willingly, to offer it in good faith is…” Alucard seems to struggle for the words to say, and Hector hangs on each one. “It is an act of trust among my kind. The ultimate vulnerability. What I said before about intimacy is almost too vague.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, between two people like us, who are emotionally connected, it can be very pleasurable. Even arousing.”

Heat rushes directly to Hector’s face. He coughs, taking another sip of wine to soothe his throat. A flicker of something warm and unsettling flares in the pit of his stomach. It makes him want to squirm. “Oh.”

“Are you sure you still want to do this?”

Hector squeezes his fingers around Alucard’s. He imagines them under his clothes. Over his skin. Feeling his body. The thought sends a shudder through him, a surge of anxiety rippling through his muscles and his bones. Alucard’s teeth glimmer dazzlingly in the firelight. He is apprehensive. His mind twists itself into a frenzy at the thought of being touched by this man.

He is shocked to discover that, while it frightens him, he _ likes _ it all the same.

Hector licks at his suddenly dry lips. He gives him a quick nod. “Where should I sit?” The crack in his voice would be mortifying if it were not for the urgency buzzing in his skull.

“Wherever you like.”

“What would be better for _ you, _Alucard?” he asks, imploring him to be honest.

“… The bed might be the most comfortable.”

Hector drinks down the rest of his wine, begging for it to give him the courage he needs. The glass is left discarded at the bedside table, empty and stained bleary with remnant streaks of burgundy. The bed is perfectly made, larger than his own and piled high with pretty pillows. He settles at the edge of the mattress, looking expectantly at Alucard.

“There are different ways we can do this,” he explains, taking a step closer. He reaches for Hector’s hand, lifting it between them. “There is the wrist.” His thumb strokes tenderly over the delicate skin there, dancing over the faint blue veins. Hector’s eyes nearly flutter. “Less invasive, though not as effective. It may take longer.” The touch skates over his arm, down into the inner bend of his elbow. “Here is better, but the skin is tender; there may be bruising.”

“Where is best?” he asks, knowing the answer.

“The neck. Always the neck.”

A ghostly pain throbs at the fang marks left behind by a monster. Hector brushes his knuckles to the aristocratic angle of Alucard’s cheekbone, savoring the tiny exhale it earns him. He would replace the fear he felt that night on the road with the affection that grips him now. He would trade Miron’s savage teeth for the beautiful curve of Alucard’s smile. He wants to pull together all the pieces that are left of him and offer them up like a gift.

“The neck it is then,” he whispers. There is an audible hitch in Alucard’s breath as Hector leans in close, paying a fleeting kiss to the corner of his mouth. He can feel the imprint of a fang over the bow of his lips.

“Hector, you don’t have to—”

“I’ll ask you to stop trying to change my mind, please.”

Humbled by the firmness in his voice, Alucard simply blinks at him. Hector takes his hand to place it at the other side of his neck, coaxing his fingers to curl around the back of his head. They play at the short curls they find there, and before he realizes it Hector is leaning in closer. Close enough for their foreheads to touch.

“You’ll tell me if you want to stop,” Alucard says, and he nods. “If you cannot speak, then pinch me. As hard as you can. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Good.”

Alucard tilts Hector’s chin at an angle so that his hair falls away from the side of his neck. His own breath sounds so loud in his ears. Alucard bows his head low, the cold tip of his nose dragging a line of gooseflesh over his skin. His lips drag achingly slow over his pulse, as though searching for the artery by feel alone. When they part, Hector braces himself, fingers clenched in the soft silk of Alucard’s shirt, ready for the piercing of flesh, but it does not come.

Alucard presses a chaste, tender kiss over the rhythm of his carotid. It is followed swiftly by another, and then another. Hector’s eyes slide closed. His lips part on a relaxed breath. He melts into it, losing himself in the utter sweetness of it all as Alucard pulls him closer to better wind his arms around Hector. It is so ardent, so gentle that when the teeth do come, he hardly even realizes it.

_ “Ah.” _

A twinge, the pinch of needle-like fangs hitting their mark as they slide past the skin. It does hurt, in the smallest measure, just enough to tether him back to reality. Hector waits with bated breath, unsure of what to expect. Alucard’s breath is a chilled gust over him, and when he pulls back a bit, it is only by enough to allow the blood room to flow. At the hesitant touch of his tongue, venturing forth to gather those initial drops of blood, Hector knows the shudder that races through him as surely as if it were his own. The arms wound around him pull him tighter as Alucard takes that first mouthful, and Hector can hear him groan low in his throat as he swallows it down.

Hector nearly loses himself in the steady cadence of it all. The draw of Alucard’s mouth settles in time with the beat of his heart. For a moment, it is almost peaceful. Hector lets himself be held, lets the calm wash over him until, eventually, something begins to shift.

A note of heat begins to build low in his belly, growing overbearing and insistent in the mellow harmony of their bodies. Hector’s eyes open. He gasps for air as it spreads through every nerve, like caramelized honey sliding slow and golden amidst his blood. Each sweep of Alucard’s tongue leaves him shaking, stoking the flames licking up the inside of each vein as he drinks. He could liken it to the inevitable push and pull of a high tide, if his blood were the ocean and Alucard were the moon. Fingers tremble as they reach to twine themselves through long, blond hair. 

Hector writhes, caught between the lulling pleasure and the exquisite agony that threaten to consume him. In an effort to keep him still, Alucard pulls at his knee so that his leg comes to encircle his waist. Hector _ moans_. The sound startles him as it falls free of his lips, hovering heavy in the air between them. Alucard answers with a sharp inhale, bearing down further.

It feels as though he is losing his mind. The heat that sings under his skin starts to reach a fever pitch, and that is when Alucard pulls away, sealing the two small wounds closed with a decisive swipe of his tongue. Hector pants in the aftermath of it.

“Alucard,” he breathes, searching for his lips. “God, _ Adrian.” _

Alucard weaves sticky, open-mouthed kisses over his hammering pulse, his adam’s apple, up the curve of his jaw. When he finally reaches Hector’s mouth, his own glistens ruby red in the weak evening light. Hector kisses him. He pulls him close, and when Alucard’s tongue dips past his lips he whimpers.

He is pressed lower to the bed, so that he lies on his back against the pillows. Alucard’s body presses flush against his own, solid and strong and blood-hot. There is not a single hint left of the chill that had clung to him the past few days. The life that flows through him is searing where his skin meets Hector’s and the knowledge that it is because of him, that it is _ his _ blood now restoring the flush to Alucard’s face, shakes him to his very core. Timidly, desperately, Hector slides his tongue against Alucard’s to taste himself there, coppery and potent. 

He is hard. He knows Alucard can feel it, close as they are, and he cannot even bring himself to be embarrassed. Not with the hand sliding underneath his shirt, fingers trailing blazing paths over his abdominals. He shudders under their scrutiny.

Alucard’s mouth leaves his to pepper fluttering kisses along the line of his throat, punctuating each with a blistering lash of his tongue. Hector squirms beneath him, itching to be touched and when the kisses linger over his collarbones, damp against the hollow of his clavicle, it feels like he is burning. _ Yes, _ he thinks as the hand at his waist begins to inch his shirt further up his belly. _ Yes, _ to the teeth grazing over his chest, _ yes, _ to the thigh sliding against his groin, _ yes, yes, yes— _

Alucard abruptly pulls away with a sharp breath. His eyes dart over the flush at Hector’s cheeks, his bruised, glistening lips. The glazed blue eyes staring heatedly into his own. “I…” he murmurs, and Hector wants to scream his frustration at the words he knows are about to follow. “We should stop.”

“Please,” he whispers, twisting against the satin pillows below him.

“No.”

Alucard sits back on his heels, towering over him. Hector actually _ whines _ at the loss of warmth. He makes to follow, but as he sits up the world suddenly lurches around him. He nearly loses his equilibrium but Alucard catches him before he can, holding him fast around the ribs.

“And _ that _ is why.” His face is tilted up, inches from the lips that had just nearly sent him over the edge. Hector breathes shallowly as gravity attempts to right itself below him. “An aftereffect of mild blood loss. It should pass fairly quickly.”

He nods in understanding, eyes closing against the disorienting sensation. Hector still clings to the loose fabric of Alucard’s shirt as if for balance.

“How do you feel?” Alucard asks him, and he hums idly.

“Dizzy. But it’s getting better.” Hector licks at his slick lips, as though trying to catch anything left of Alucard’s mouth on his own. “May I ask you something?”

“I suppose.”

“What do I taste like to you?”

The breath hitches in Alucard’s throat and it thrills him. Hector leans in closer, lets himself be kissed again, long and slow and lingering.

“You taste like the sun,” Alucard answers him, and it sends a tremor through to his very core. He noses over the soft line of Hector’s neck, and Hector feels his chest expand as he breathes him in. Alucard groans at the scent of him. It sends chills over every inch of his skin. “Hector…”

He slides his hands boldly up the back of Alucard’s shirt, reveling in the heat he finds there, in the strength that sits hidden away in the length of his spine. “You feel so much warmer,” he marvels, and he smiles at the satisfied hum that reverberates through the man on top of him. “It’s incredible.”

Alucard chuckles affectionately. “It is a very rapid process.”

“Better now?”

_ “Yes.” _He leans back to cup Hector’s face, thumb worrying at his cheek. “Hector, I… I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you. It was unfair of me to try and make this decision for you. You have given me a gift, and I cannot even begin to thank you for it.”

“Then let me put your mind at ease.” Alucard gives him the gilded cut of his gaze and Hector smiles. “I would not see you suffer. If a little blood was the price to be paid—”

“It is not simply a matter of ‘a little blood.’ It is much more than that.” Hector swallows drily. Alucard leans close, resting his lips at his temple. “The gift I refer to is not your blood. It is your trust. I know it was not so easily given, and I hardly feel worthy of it, but I thank you nonetheless.”

A sudden uprising of emotions threaten to spill at his eyes. Hector hiccups a small breath, hiding it in the golden waves of Alucard’s hair. “You have it,” he whispers, because it is true. That, and so much more.

He is prescribed a night’s rest, with a hearty breakfast and plenty of fluids to follow the next morning. Alucard helps him to his own bedroom with a steady arm firmly supporting his waist. Outside his door, Alucard allows him one final kiss goodnight, chuckling as Hector greedily chases his lips.

“Thank you, again,” he says thickly, tucking his nose into the crook of his neck. “Truly. You cannot know what this means. How grateful I am.”

Hector shakes his head. “You need not thank me. I would gladly do it again.”

“I…” Alucard’s eyes are bright in the dark. He hesitates, as though grappling for the courage to say something. Hector blinks as he waits, hanging on his incomplete words. In the end Alucard just smiles at him. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

In the comfortable haven of his own bedroom, Hector dresses for bed. He wets a cloth to wipe away the small smears of dried blood that sit over his skin, painted there in the shape of Alucard’s mouth. He lazily drags damp fingers over his own skin, as though to recreate the touch of pale, elegant fingers. It still thrills him, still sends a tingle over his nerves, but it is not the same. Nowhere near the same.

Hector has not touched himself since before Styria. Before Braila. He had tried on a couple of dismal occasions that had only ended in a mess of frustrated and disheartened tears as he fought back the ghosts that he could not chase away. That night though, as he tosses and turns amongst his sheets, he thinks of the way Alucard had touched him. How warm he’d felt against him. The sounds he’d made as he drank from Hector’s body. Trembling fingers slide low to overheated skin. His toes curl in his blankets. His hips stutter under his palm. Hector bites at his lip, hard, until he breaks the skin and tastes blood, and when he comes it is to the thought of Alucard’s scorching tongue in his mouth.

The next morning, he rises the same time he normally does. Hector dresses. He combs his hair and cleans his teeth, the same as he does every single day, but this time, something in the mirror catches his eye. There at his throat, where once had been the ugly and painful scar Miron had left on him before he’d burned to ash, sits nothing but clear, unmarked skin.

It is almost impossible to believe, and as Hector touches it, trying to assure himself this is _ real, _he has to blink past his tears as they threaten to blind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! Please remember to leave a comment with what you liked or didn't like about this chapter. I'm always open for feedback, and I really do thrive off of it :)


	20. Part XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So I know we all watched whatever the FUCK season 3 was, but don't worry!!! I fixed everything :) We're just gonna put a big band-aid on all that and pretend like it never happened!!!!!!!!
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [Enthralled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496005/chapters/53753908). It's definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

It has been a peaceful few weeks.

A hazy tranquility seems to settle over the castle, blanketing the four of them in sticky summer placidity. They all seem to melt with it. There are mornings Alucard passes outside in the garden with Hector, the dew chasing at their ankles and their fingers as he fondly watches Hector’s dedicated care of his flowers. He helps where he can, but it is so easy to become distracted by the serenity found in his face as he carefully tends to each bloom. There are afternoons spent either deliberating with Sypha as to what she finds in the gloom of the underground hold or helping Trevor take the first steps towards rebuilding his childhood home in the shimmering heat. The man might be made ill at the idea of revealing a single private thought, but Alucard can suspect upon seeing the looks he gives Sypha, the touches he steals when he thinks no one is looking, that he may yet mean to give her the house they established so long ago that she never had.

In the evenings, they share a meal together colored by comfortable and idle chatter. In the hour or so the four of them share at a table, it lifts his heart to see Hector begin to come out of his shell. He quickly grows to like Sypha, as many people who meet her do. She is kind, good, and a tiny bit mad, just unhinged enough to embellish just how truly brilliant she is. Time and no small amount of persistence on her own part sees Hector begin to warm up to her. In the case of Trevor, while Alucard cannot say they will ever be friends he is glad to see the animosity between them diminish with each passing day. Trevor’s awkward attempts at engagement with Hector do not go unnoticed, even if they are short-lived and strained. It is an effort, and not one Alucard would have thought him capable of putting forth many months ago. He had not realized how much it would mean to him to see his friends, his only remaining _ family, _welcome him into their circle.

It is on a particularly warm afternoon that they all choose to keep indoors, escaping the sweltering heat from within the cooled interior of the castle. He and Hector have sequestered themselves in one of the smaller libraries; Alucard has tasked himself with reorganizing his patient records while Hector keeps him company, idly leafing through data they’d gathered in the laboratory. It is already promising to be a less than productive day, made more so by the lazy ennui that seems to saturate the air in the castle.

Sypha joins them at some point, in search of an almanac she thinks she might have seen on the shelves before. Still absorbed in his patients’ logs, Alucard absentmindedly asks her after the date as she searches. She answers him, and he notices that when she does, Hector’s head lifts for a brief moment. He makes an astonished face, as though something has just occurred to him.

“Is that really the date?” he asks incredulously, and Sypha turns to respond.

“I believe so; I checked the calendar just this morning.”

Hector seems to lose himself in thought then. “Miss an appointment?” Alucard jests. Hector gives him a stunned look.

“No,” he answers. “I’ve just realized that tomorrow is my birthday.”

It is Alucard’s turn to be stunned. He blinks, his pen going still against the page of his journal. Sypha’s delighted gasp rings in his ears.

“It’s your birthday?” she exclaims, clapping her hands together in joy. “Oh, why didn’t you say something!”

Hector shrinks nervously at the attention. “It… must have slipped my mind.”

“We’ll have to celebrate,” she says matter-of-factly. “Let me talk to Trevor. This will be so much fun!”

She pats lightly at Alucard’s head on her way out, murmuring a heartfelt “happy birthday!” to Hector. He has half a mind to remind her of the almanac she is leaving behind, but before he can open his mouth the door has closed behind her. Hector gives him a bewildered look.

“She heard me say it was _ tomorrow?” _

“You have made a grave error, I am afraid.” Alucard smirks to himself, closing his journal. The likelihood of getting any work done now was nearly zero. “Sypha will gladly look for any excuse to celebrate.”

Hector laughs. “Now I don’t know whether to be flattered or concerned.”

“A healthy blend of the two might be best.” Something does not sit right next to Alucard’s heart. He tilts his head towards Hector, his hair falling over his shoulder. “Did you truly forget your birthday?”

“I suppose I did.” He shrugs, eyes falling back to the parchment in his lap. “I never really celebrated it in the past, when I was living alone. I might have bought a bottle of wine if I had the money, or some new boots if I needed them, but otherwise it was just another day. And, with… everything that has happened, I just never gave it much thought.”

The notion that Hector’s own birthday was not something he saw as worthy of being acknowledged makes Alucard remarkably sad. As a child, his birthday had been his favorite day of the year. His mother and father would spend every moment of it with him: lessons were postponed, schedules cleared as best they could solely for him. They each gave him gifts, some of which he still treasured to this day. He watches Hector’s face as he goes back to his data, clear blue eyes scanning the pages in front of him, and wonders if his parents had given him birthday presents as a boy. He decides that he does not like the conclusion he comes to.

The next morning, Alucard wakes far before the sun rises. It is so early that there are no morning birds up yet to sing as he rises, and the world outside his windows is still dark and quiet. His footsteps through the halls are all but silent as he navigates his way to the kitchen to begin searching for his mother’s handwritten _ mucenici _ recipe.

He can recall helping her make them when he’d been small, though the intricacies of baking had been mostly lost on his young mind. His mother usually prepared the dough herself ahead of time, enlisting his help in shaping and topping them. He traces the familiar looping script of her handwriting, both heartsick and appreciative that she’d thought to write it down.

Alucard sets to work blooming his yeast in lukewarm milk and sugar, giving it time to activate while he gathers his other ingredients: flour, butter, salt, eggs, lemon, and orange. He mixes it all in a bowl using his hands, kneading until it forms a coherent, sticky dough. While it rises he sets to work making the walnut filling and sugar syrup. After an hour passes, he divides his dough into 16 pieces and leaves it to rise a final time as he finishes.

By the time he has managed to shape and fill each pastry, soak them in sugar syrup, and top them with more crushed walnuts, the sun is finally beginning to make its ascent over the horizon. As he begins to clean up his mess, his pastries baking away in the oven, the kitchen door opens to reveal a groggy and yawning Trevor Belmont.

“You’re up early,” he mutters to the hunter as he wipes down the table. He’d managed to get the syrup just about everywhere he could, and unfortunately it has begun to harden in places.

“And you’re not?” Trevor grouses, rubbing the heel of his palm into his unscarred eye. He reaches for an apple from the counter, biting into it with a satisfying crunch. “Sypha has decided we’re to go to the village later, so there are some things I wanted to get done around the estate before we leave. She said it’s Hector’s birthday?”

“It is.” Alucard scrubs at a particularly stubborn sticky patch.

“We’re apparently going to look for gifts this afternoon.” Trevor tensely clears his throat. He tosses the apple once into the air, deftly catching it on its way down. “You wouldn’t happen to know what he likes?”

He nearly opens his mouth to tell Trevor to put forth the effort in coming up with his own gift, but something stops him. In truth, he is stunned to hear that Trevor cares enough to ask for his opinion. He stops his cleaning, leaning against the table with his hands. “Books would be a safe bet; Hector does love to read. Though he could use another pair of gloves for the garden.” The ones Hector has now have a hole in the palm he remembers, but he keeps that detail for himself.

“I’ll keep that in mind. But you know Sypha,” Trevor laughs. “She’ll probably come back with some mysterious trinket bought off a peddler with one eye and a club foot.”

“You’re probably right. Her tastes are rather unusual.” He throws Belmont a glance from the corner of his eye. “Though I suspect Hector would appreciate it all the same. I don’t think… he is very accustomed to receiving gifts.”

The thought brings with it a somber mood, one that affects even Trevor. They sit in silence for several minutes after. Alucard finishes his tidying up, having washed away the last of the sticky patches on his table and resigns himself to watching the clock as he waits for the _ mucenici _ to finish baking. Trevor finishes his apple. He takes another, but instead of taking a bite he simply admires its deep, red skin, almost black as it gleams in the dawn light. Alucard feels it when his gaze shifts to him.

“Does he make you happy, Alucard?”

The question perplexes him. Alucard fidgets, which isn’t entirely like him. He tugs at the hem of his sleeve, where some of the syrup has dried and crystallized. He will have to change his clothes after, with all the flour and sugar that now covers them.

Hector does make him happy. Of that much he is sure. Happy, though, is not entirely the right word. It is much, much deeper than that. He’s been happy before, with his family, with Sypha and Trevor. With Hector, he is… content. He has a reason to wake up each day. To help with equations, to see the flowers in the garden, to tuck stray silver curls behind an ear. To bake pastries his mother used to make for him on his birthday. He remembers the days where he’d had no one but himself, listless in his own despair as time merely passed him by. It is different now. It is like he himself has been given a gift; a purpose. Yes, Hector makes him happy. But he also makes him _ better. _

“Does Sypha make you happy, Trevor?” he asks, because he suspects their answers are the same. Trevor blinks at him serenely, and that is not a word Alucard would ever have used to describe Trevor Belmont. Barbaric, or cloddish maybe. Definitely unwashed. At the mention of Sypha’s name, though, a sort of peace falls over his face that Alucard has never seen there before. Trevor laughs softly.

“Fair enough.”

Eventually, his pastries have to come out of the oven. Alucard pulls them, using a dry kitchen towel to protect his hands, and slides them over a wire cooling rack. He senses Trevor’s outstretched hand before he sees it, grabbing it at the wrist with inhuman reflexes.

“No,” he chides him. He points to one of the uglier specimens, most likely his first attempt at shaping the figure eights. “Take that one.”

Trevor pulls his hand back with a pout, taking the unfortunate pastry without another word. He hisses at the heat of it, bouncing it between his palms as he tries not to burn himself. “Hot,” he huffs stupidly. Alucard rolls his eyes.

“Yes,” he drawls, “it’s the oven, you see.”

Trevor says nothing in response, simply glaring at Alucard as he leans in close to his face to take a loud, ill-mannered bite. He sighs in appreciation as he chews, using his thumb to sweep the crumbs from his mouth.

“Those are good. I haven’t had them since I was a boy.”

“Mm.”

Trevor does not linger overlong after that, and Alucard has a suspicion he had simply been waiting for a warm breakfast. He bids him a quick good morning in farewell before excusing himself from the room. Alucard sets about putting together a tea tray. As he waits for his water to boil, he fills a small china bowl with summer fruits: wild strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. Once his pastries have cooled a bit, they are glazed with thinned honey and stacked neatly upon a plate for transport.

Hector is still asleep when he slips into the open door of his bedroom, treading carefully so as not to rattle the contents of the tray. He deposits it lightly on the bed. Hector’s face is half buried in his pillow, his body curled beneath his sheets. Alucard smiles gently to himself as he looks, appreciating the vulnerable stillness of him. Unable to help himself, he leans forward to press a warm kiss to Hector’s forehead. He feels his eyelashes flutter then, opening as he wakes.

“Good morning,” he murmurs sleepily. A hand comes to rub tiredly at his eyes. He spies the tray, and Alucard’s heart swells in his chest at the tired smile that plays at Hector’s lips. “What’s this?”

“Breakfast,” Alucard answers him. Hector reaches for one of the pastries. He turns it over in his hand, admiring the golden color.

“Did you make these? This morning?”

He hums in affirmation. Alucard pours a cup of tea for Hector. He adds a spoonful of honey, squeezing the juice from a lemon wedge into it. Hector offers him a bite of the _ mucenici _ and Alucard sinks his teeth into the soft pastry. The sweetness of it rolls over his palate. It is every bit as good as he remembers.

“You,” Hector says, reaching for the tea, “are a much better baker than I could ever hope to be.”

“I am glad you like them.” He leans to the side, so that a curtain of sunlight illuminates Hector in his bed. The sight is enough to weaken his knees. “Happy birthday, Hector.”

“Thank you.” He bites at his lip, pretty white teeth digging into the soft flesh. “I really, really wasn’t expecting anything like this but… thank you all the same. It’s wonderful.”

Hector leans in to kiss him then, tasting of sugar and tea and sleep. He catches the bow of Alucard’s lips between his own. When he pulls away, he grins beautifully, blue eyes gleaming in the sun.

“What is it?” Alucard asks him.

“You have honey on your mouth.” Hector chuckles. Alucard playfully leans closer.

“Help me with it?” he teases, and he is rewarded with another saccharine kiss.

* * *

Breakfast in bed had only been the first part of the day Alucard had planned. He affords Hector a few hours to himself, knowing that he needs them, but when afternoon grows closer he carefully packs them a small picnic: a spare loaf of bread, a serving of soft cheese, and grapes. He had thought to chill a bottle of wine the night before, a dry riesling from Alsaçe. He sees Sypha and Trevor off to the village, his basket and his bottle under his arm, and then he and Hector walk to the garden.

Their feet are bare in the grass, shirt sleeves rolled up in the summer heat as they lay themselves out over the lush green carpet. Hector sips idly at the wine, straight from the bottle. Alucard hadn’t bothered with glasses. A hot wind rustles through the leaves in the treeline, tousling their hair as they sit.

“Summer was always my favorite of the seasons,” Hector murmurs idly.

“Oh?”

“Where I lived in Rhodes, I kept a small vegetable patch behind my house.” His fingers tap idly at the green glass of the bottle. “Nothing too grand; some tomatoes, cucumbers, or eggplant if I had the seeds. There was a pear tree in the woods nearby, and I could usually take a few for myself if I managed to beat the deer there.”

Alucard listens intently, imagining Hector puttering about amongst his vegetables the same way he did with his flowers. He plucks a grape from the bunch and pops it into his mouth.

“When it was very hot, I used to walk down to the ocean. Sometimes I would take a net and see what I could catch, but more often than not I just liked being in the water.”

It is the most he has ever heard Hector speak of the home he’d left behind for Wallachia. A pang of longing settles under his lungs at the wistful look in his eyes. He wonders if the oceans near Rhodes had ever been such a brilliant shade of blue.

“Perhaps someday you’ll get to see the ocean again,” he says. “We could go together.”

Hector rolls in the grass to face him. He looks at Alucard hopefully from beneath his lashes. “I would like that. Very much.” He leans his cheek against the cold bottle. “Have you ever been to the sea, Alucard?”

“I have,” is his answer. He remembers the shimmering waters of Marseilles, gorgeously clear and crystal blue against bright sand. He’d been to the Mediterranean once while traveling with his father, and recalls how hauntingly beautiful the white cliffs had been against the black ocean under the curtain of night. He thinks of taking Hector to those very same beaches. He thinks of taking him anywhere he’d like to go.

He glances over to see Hector worrying at the crystal dangling from around his wrist. He always seems to do it when deep in thought, when his mind has so much to sort through his hands must be in motion too.

“I know you miss them,” he says softly. Hector nods absentmindedly, as though it were the easiest thing in the world to admit.

“Terribly. Especially at night.” The crystal catches the sun, flashing blindingly in its light. “Do you? Miss them.”

“ … Yes.” It is the truth. As eccentric as his faerie visitors had been, they had brought with them a sweetness that he doesn’t think the castle has ever possessed since his mother’s death, if even then. His mother had loved flowers, but not like a faerie does. In their absence Iri and Aria had left a void that not even Sypha and Trevor had been able to fill. He knows Hector feels it each and every day, far more intensely than he himself can.

Alucard rolls to his side to face him. It was not a day for dwelling on melancholy thoughts, and if that meant he had to distract Hector from them then he very well meant to. He pulls him close, pulls him flush so that they lie belly to belly in the grass. A breeze passes through the rose bushes nearby and with it drifts their heady perfume.

Hector kisses him. There is wine on his tongue, but also heat. It is the same heat that has been steadily simmering between them these past few weeks, ever since that night Hector had offered him his blood. He feels it in every kiss stolen in a secluded corner of the castle, every brush of fingertips over a pulsepoint. He’d had the willpower to stop that evening, the restraint to pull away before it was too much and to give Hector the time to decide just what he was ready for. He is not sure he has the strength to turn him away again.

Alucard shifts to lie on his back, and he drags Hector on top of him without ever letting go of his mouth. He relishes the quiet, pleased sound, hissing as Hector shifts over his body. The bottle, forgotten on the ground a few feet away, tips over and Alucard could care less about the wasted wine soaking into the soil. He cradles his hand underneath silvery curls and _ wants. _

Hector separates them for a second, his lips spit slick and bruised. “Sypha and Belmont—”

“Left for the village less than an hour ago.” He smears his lips over the corner of Hector’s open mouth to taste his breath as he pants. “They won’t be back for several more.”

A dark, wet-smelling wind ripples through the grass below them. One glance at the sky reveals a swell of great, grey clouds that had most definitely not been on the horizon the last time he’d bothered to look. As Hector licks timidly at the seam of his lips, Alucard supposes he may have been distracted.

When the first heavy drop of rain lands on his cheek, he is broken from that lusty haze that had settled over them. Another drop follows, this time falling into his eye, then another and another until it truly begins to rain. Hector moans as Alucard sits up, and Alucard is so tempted to have him there in the wet grass in the middle of the oncoming storm. He doesn’t much care if he _ drowns. _ His rational mind insists, however, that they find their way inside.

“Do you think,” Hector asks, as Alucard helps to pull him to his feet, “that they shall have to find lodgings in the village for the night? If this rain keeps up.”

There is a wild edge to Hector’s eyes that he has not seen before, his pupils blown wide and he drags his tongue over lips glistening with rainwater. He cannot answer, but he hopes, as he takes Hector by the hand to lead him into the castle, their picnic left entirely forgotten behind them, that Sypha and Trevor manage to find a comfortable inn.

* * *

They chase each other into the castle, out of the rain. Their clothes are soaked, hair plastered to their faces as they grin at each other. Wet, bare feet leave tiny puddles in their wake, up the stairs and down the corridors. Hector laughs as Alucard crowds him into every alcove they can find along the way, kissing him breathless and giddy before tugging him back along. Pale fingers clutch at his own and never once let go.

The fire in the sitting room mutters at them as they tumble inside. Hector is glad for the warmth of it as he shivers beneath his sodden shirt. He reaches for Alucard to pull him close. Close so that their noses brush, so that the air they breathe is shared between them. He shivers again as the solid line of Alucard’s body presses into his own, and this time it has nothing to do with the chill.

Lips trail their way over an alabaster cheek, stilling over the shell of Alucard’s ear to whisper an easy “I love you,” there. The response is visceral. He can feel the impact of the words as they seem to reverberate through the man against him. Alucard tucks a bitten gasp against his temple. Hector says it again. “I love you.” I love you. _ I love you. _

He wishes he’d been a poet. A scholar. A linguist. Then maybe, just maybe he would have enough words to adequately describe the depths that his affections reach in the chambers of his heart. He could lament his inadequacy, but three simple words are enough to bridge that gap for now. They spill from him again and again, until Alucard takes his lips to replace the sentiment in his mouth with his tongue. Hector sighs, the sound gusting high in his throat. He opens to him in kind. Licks his way past the lethal cusp of Alucard’s teeth to taste his own words there. He never could have imagined how sweet it all is.

Alucard’s lips leave his, and Hector utters a tiny forlorn sound that quickly stretches into a moan as they slide to his rain-damp neck. The world slips syrupy and slow around him as they glide over his pulse, tasting the beat of his heart through his skin. Alucard maps his throat in a constellation of searing kisses. Hector feels his body slacken as the flickering pleasure rolls its way down his spine.

“Hector.”

The kisses dissipate. Hector blearily opens eyes he had not even realized he’d closed, searching through the storm-darkened room to find the molten aurum of Alucard’s gaze. His breath comes in soundless pants, trembling as it leaves his lungs.

“What is it?” he asks, and the thick sound of his voice is unfamiliar in his ears. He swallows once, tongue peeking forth to sweep over his bottom lip. Alucard stares.

“What do you want?”

He pauses. The question hangs heavy in the atmosphere around them, like the clouds rolling in the sky. The storm beats at the windows of their sanctuary so loudly it nearly drowns out the roaring in his ears.

What _ does _ he want? The answer is both so simple, yet decidedly not. A sick and shaky feeling churns below his sternum, and Hector cannot make up his mind if he likes it. It feels like fear. And Hector knows fear by now, has lived with it for so long it is almost second nature. The fear of putting his heart, his body into someone else’s hands when he is not used to offering it himself. But beyond the fear, beyond the alkaline twinge of hesitation at his tongue, is sweetness. The honeyed hue of Alucard’s eyes, the cinnamon warmth of his body, the saccharine taste of his affection. You could have all of this, he tells himself. All of this man. All of Alucard.

“You,” he answers. “I want you.”

The hush that follows is beautiful. The smile on Alucard’s face is _ beautiful. _Hector reaches up with his hands, skates his fingers over him as if to commit the expression to memory through touch. The kiss he receives for it is slow. Soft. Not like the frenzied ones from moments ago, love-quickened and eager. This is different. Significant.

“You have me,” Alucard murmurs into his mouth. “You have me.”

It breaks over him like a revelation. Butterflies swarm his stomach, filling him with a delirious joy that rushes past his lips in the form of a breathy laugh. “I love you,” he says again, just because he is learning that he likes to, and Alucard’s answering “I love _ you,” _is muffled into the hinge of his jaw.

Hector allows himself to be led to the loveseat, his knees growing weaker with each step. He watches as Alucard drapes himself over its cushions, the lean lines of his body now on full display. He is _ ethereal. _More captivating than Hector ever anticipated he could ever find another person. Miles of flawless, pale skin cloaked in the translucent white of his soaked shirt. Long legs that seem to go on for days. Alucard takes Hector’s hand and coaxes him between them so that his body blankets that of the man below him. His pulse thunders through his ears as he settles atop Alucard’s chest, legs straddling his torso with one of his feet resting on the floor. 

The white gold curtain of Alucard’s hair splays out in a halo below his head, and Hector is reminded of all the paintings of angels he’d seen in churches as a child. He touches Alucard’s face now as he’d longed to do back then, taking his time to chart every line of his expression. Soft lips kiss at his fingertips as they pass by. He grins.

Alucard cards his own fingers through the dampened curls of Hector’s hair, brushing it back from his face. He stills at the tenderness in it, eyes again sliding closed as a thumb grazes over his temple.

“You are so beautiful,” Alucard tells him, and the air leaves him in a shaky exhale. Hector finds himself unable to respond as the words have quite literally been stolen right from his mouth.

It is said so earnestly, he nearly believes it.

Alucard’s hips shift under his own as he moves, attempting to provide Hector with more room, and the sudden wave of want that flares low in Hector’s belly nearly blinds him. A broken moan escapes him. He hears the hitch in Alucard’s throat, and when he does it again Hector bites down on his lip to keep himself quiet.

When he manages to get his hands underneath the cloying shroud of Alucard’s shirt, Hector sits back on his heels. He reaches, desperate to get his hands on every inch of skin revealed to him. The powerful planes of muscle undulate under his fingers. Rectus abdominis. Umbilicus. External obliques. Pectoralis major. He names them to himself as Alucard bends his body to rid himself of the fabric. The sight of him bare in the firelight is captivating, even with the long, jagged scar that nearly splits him in two. Hector traces it gently with his index finger, treasuring the shudder that runs through the man below him. He longs to traverse its length with his tongue. A passing curiosity grips Hector, and he skims his thumb over a dusky pink nipple. Alucard hisses, fidgeting briefly under his hands as color begins to bloom over his cheekbones. His reward is another roll of Alucard’s hips, this time strong enough to tear a surprised gasp from him.

A flash of lightning briefly illuminates the two of them, a crackling peal of thunder close behind. The floor tremors underneath them. The glass panes rattle in the windows. Hector is momentarily torn from the wild thumping of his heart long enough to pull back from the headiness of it all. He stares down at Alucard, at his slick, parted lips and flushed face. His hands begin to shake. Blue eyes dart around the room in search of something, anything to ground him.

Suddenly, the reality of what he is doing, what he is _ about _ to do, overwhelms him, and Hector feels lost to it.

“Is something the matter?” Alucard asks him, his voice calm and measured as though he were talking to a frightened animal

“I don’t…” Hector sighs, frustrated with himself. He shakes his head, trying to clear it of this unwelcome uncertainty.

“We can stop,” he is reminded, “if this is not what you want.”

“It _ is,” _he insists, because it is the absolute truth. “I’m not changing my mind. It’s just… I have never done this before. Not willingly, at least.” The pitiful, voiceless laugh that he breathes afterwards does not go over well. It only furthers the frown growing at Alucard’s mouth. Hector swallows against his dry throat. “I do want this, but I have no idea what I am doing, Alucard.”

“It’s all right.”

Alucard sits up. Hector reclines further in the cradle of his lap, his back nearly flush against bent knees. He leans close, though, when a lingering kiss is placed at the underside of his jaw. All the apprehension seems to rush out of his body with his breath, his hands reaching to tangle themselves in soft, golden hair. His head tilts back, giving Alucard the length of his newly unmarked throat. Alucard tugs idly at the hem of his shirt.

“Hector,” he says into the join between his neck and his shoulder. “Can I touch you?”

“Yes,” he gasps. “Please.”

Alucard’s smile is a treasured imprint on his flesh. It is gone for just a moment, only long enough for him to gather the linen of Hector’s shirt and pull up. He raises his arms to see it lifted from his body. Even with the fire, even with the heat of the season outside, the rush of air on his naked skin chills him with gooseflesh. He shivers with it until Alucard again lays his hands on him; the sheer heat of him is enough to soothe the edge to his anxiety.

Every touch is nearly too much, and yet absolutely not enough. Like a cartographer, Alucard seeks to map every inch of his skin with his mouth. Hector clings to him as teeth graze the ridge of his clavicle, only barely so. Elegant fingers count the spaces between each of his ribs with featherlight precision. It tickles just enough to keep his nerves reeling, stretched taut between Alucard’s hands and his lips traversing the valley below Hector’s sternum.

As though seeking some sort of retribution, Alucard softly strokes the pad of one finger over Hector’s left nipple and the resulting jolt of sensation makes him jump. His mouth closes over the right and Hector _ sobs. _His forehead drops to rest against Alucard’s shoulder. The lash of a scorching tongue sends a swell of pleasure to crest behind his navel and straight to his cock. He squirms in Alucard’s lap.

Alucard lifts him then, carefully switching their places so that Hector is the one to lie back on the plush cushions below them. His head spins a bit between the shift in balance and the blood rushing elsewhere throughout his body. As Alucard’s head descends ever lower over his abdomen, his long hair trailing in his wake, Hector can feel the trip in his heartbeat. He stops just above the laces of his breeches. Alucard’s luminous eyes pin him as he looks up.

“I want to suck you,” he says, low and sultry, and Hector is fairly certain his soul leaves his body.

“What?” he asks dumbly, his voice suddenly having gone up an octave. Alucard snickers as he kisses through the fine trail of hair that leads down past the waist of Hector’s breeches. He presses his cheek into the angle of his hip.

“Your cock, Hector,” he elaborates, and Hector is quite simply amazed there is enough blood left free in his veins to warm his face with a blush. “I want to suck your cock.”

_ “Oh.” _

He’d known, of course, just what Alucard had meant, but it had caught him so off guard he hadn’t known how else to respond. The very thought of Alucard’s mouth on him is staggering, nearly so much as the idea that he would even _ want _ to. Hector can feel himself, hard and hot against his own leg. His hips shift desperately beneath Alucard’s weight.

“Would you like that?” he is asked, and all he can do is nod. Alucard smiles, gorgeous, and the dazzling glint of his fangs catches Hector’s eye.

“Your teeth,” he stammers nervously. “Would they… pose a problem?”

Alucard hums in consideration, his deft fingers making short work of Hector’s laces. When he next speaks, Hector feels each word as it breaks against his skin. “I’ve never heard a complaint thus far.”

Hector utters a wordless cry as his pants are slowly pulled over his thighs.

He had known, on some level, that logically this would involve the removal of his clothes. But now, as Alucard means to lay him more bare than he has ever been in front of him, Hector frets. He wants to cover himself with his hands. To hide the marks left upon his body that he has spent months avoiding in the mirror. He does not want Alucard to see them for fear that when he does, he will not want Hector anymore. That he will change his mind about this, about everything. That he’ll decide he does not want a damaged and fragile fool.

The scars are glaringly bright in the dim room, so much so that Hector cannot stand to look at them himself. They sprawl over the wings of his pelvis, carved there like sigils in the gnarled bark of a tree. At some point he’d been able to trick himself into thinking they’d managed to fade a bit but here, now, he knows that had been blind optimism. The silvery white ropes of scar tissue are still every bit as brutal to him as they had been the days they were sliced into his skin.

Alucard’s silence is deafening to his ears, even through the rain, through the clouds roiling above Castlevania’s towers. He does not tell Hector they’re beautiful, because they are not. They are savage, hideous, and tragic, and he will bear them for the rest of his life as surely as he bears the scars on his psyche. Hector covers his mouth, raises his eyes to the ceiling because the thought of meeting Alucard’s gaze over this is so much more than he can take.

He says nothing as he feels the satin press of lips, tracing over the tracks of raised skin and laying kiss after chaste kiss to them. He merely bites down on the flesh between his forefinger and thumb, working to hold back the hiccup that bubbles at the back of his throat. Alucard thoroughly pays each scar the same loving recognition before switching his focus to the other hip and repeating the process all over. Hector trembles. He feels entirely unworthy and wholly grateful. He cannot decide whether he would like to tear Alucard away from them or savor the tenderness being given to him. It both aches and soothes, a double edged blade he is barely able to balance upon.

A tear slips from the corner of his eye, trickling down into his hairline at the first sweep of a tongue over the head of his cock. Hector keens sharply at the shock of it, a throb of pleasure that he feels down into his very bones. His hips jerk involuntarily, indecisively caught between tilting into Alucard and shying away. He risks a glance down and is immediately unsure if he’ll ever be able to tear his eyes away again. Alucard tastes him then, long and slow, the pink of his tongue soft and wet against Hector’s skin. He licks at the leaking slit of him, lapping at the bead of clear fluid that has gathered there. Hector returns to sinking his teeth into his knuckles, and Alucard reaches to pull at his elbow, dislodging his hand.

“No,” he whispers, words muffled into the crease of his hip. “Let me hear you, please?”

Hector acquiesces, but his scrabbling fingers quickly find purchase in tempting tresses of blond hair. Alucard sighs appreciatively. His eyes close, lashes splaying long and pretty over his cheekbones. He curls his fingers around Hector’s length as his lips drift towards the delicate flesh of his inner thigh. Hector pants at the dual sensation of hard, sucking kisses that leave bruises blooming like roses under the skin and the feather light stroke of Alucard’s hand over him, the pad of his thumb teasing just under his glans. Hector’s breath leaves him in an uneven rhythm of harsh pants. Lust pools like melted butter low in his belly, hot and liquid and golden.

He whines when Alucard pulls away for a moment, shocked at the pitiful sound he makes. One of his legs is lifted to rest over a shoulder, the other still tucked close to Alucard’s body. Alucard’s eyes look up to him for a split second, holding him captive as he tongues him generously, and then he swallows him down.

_ “God, _Alucard,” he sputters, trying his best to keep still as Dracula’s son sinks his nose into the curls at the root of his cock. An amused gust of air rushes at his skin, and then Alucard drags his lips up and over him again, his cheeks hollowing as he sucks. The tip of his tongue worries again at that sensitive patch of skin just under the head, and Hector feels ready to fly apart at the seams. His fingers slacken in Alucard’s hair, shaking against the flushed skin of his face.

It feels good. _ Too _good. Hector has never been so hard in his life, so tightly strung. He can already feel the ground rushing to meet him as he lurches over the precipice, desperate to come, and yet he lingers there. Simmering in his own pleasure as it washes over him like warm seafoam, far too much and yet not enough. He can almost picture the synapses in his brain, firing overworked and overwhelmed in the onslaught, the slick slide of Alucard’s mouth and throat. It feels like he is dying, and it is too exquisite to take.

“Wait,” he gasps, his throat working around the word. Alucard stops abruptly, pulling away with an obscene, soaked sound that very nearly drags Hector under. He lifts his head to look at Hector’s face, and Hector has to shut his eyes. His face is even more flushed now, lips glossy with saliva, his hair tousled where Hector’s fingers have mussed it. His chest heaves as he tries to come back to himself, to string all the pieces of his mind back together where they have frayed.

“Too much?” Alucard asks him, rubbing comfortingly at his ankle. Hector nods. His heartbeat finally begins to slow, but not by a lot.

“Yes,” he breathes. The rain outside lets up, briefly. It provides him the quiet he needs. “I liked it,” he assures Alucard, “but yes. Too much, for now at least.”

Alucard kisses ardently at the bend of his knee. “Shall we take a moment?”

“Can you just… kiss me again?”

A sly smile stretches across Alucard’s mouth. He slowly crawls forward, settling in between Hector’s splayed legs, the soft skin of his belly grazing ever so lightly over his cock. His arms bracket either side of Hector’s head, fingers twisting through his hair again as he combs it away from his face. Hector strains his neck, lifts his head for the kiss he’d asked for, but Alucard pulls back at the last moment. His lips catch the regal angle of his chin.

_ “Where _ would you like me to kiss you, Hector?” he asks playfully.

“Anywhere.” He watches for the flash of pink behind Alucard’s lips, worrying idly at a brilliant white fang. “Everywhere.”

The first one lands innocently at the shell of his ear. Hector grins as he squirms against the ticklish breath that breezes through his hair. Kisses trail down over the nape of his neck, up under his jaw and over his adam’s apple. When Alucard finally stops at his mouth, Hector cannot help the pleased moan it draws from him. He simply savors it, savors the warmth of the man on top of him, savors the languid glide of lips and tongue against his own. As he lets himself be kissed, ravished breathless and dizzy by the taste of himself against Alucard’s teeth, his hands determinedly snake between them until they come to rest at the laces of the other man’s trousers.

“I want to touch you.” He boldly tugs at one of the cords, thrilled as it comes loose. “Please.”

He feels the answering groan deep in Alucard’s chest. He lifts his hips to afford him more room to move. When the strings finally come apart, breeches pulled just low enough to matter, Hector slides his hand past the fabric until he finally clasps his fingers around Alucard’s length. Alucard freezes, the taut line of his belly fluctuating as he gasps. His hips drag forth to fuck into Hector’s palm. Hector tilts his head back to see him, and it takes his breath away. Alucard’s hair drapes tousled over one shoulder, his face slack in pleasure and his lips kiss-red.

He strokes him as well as he can, used to doing so to himself and at a much more comfortable angle. Eventually, Alucard pulls his hand away. He interlocks their fingers, rests their joined hands next to Hector’s head, and _ grinds _ their hips together. It knocks the breath from Hector’s lungs, tears a choked cry from him. Alucard feels like silk against him, velvet soft and burning hot and utterly, completely perfect. His thighs clench at Alucard’s waist, his spine curling up to meet him under the weight of his own mounting pleasure. 

The rain once again begins to drum against the windows, louder and louder in his ears until it drowns out every sound he makes, every moan and sigh against Alucard’s mouth as he feels himself unravelling. Hector clutches at him, nails scratching lightly at the skin of Alucard’s powerful back. He feels the shiver as it races up him, accentuated by a particularly hard thrust that makes him see stars.

“Are you close?” Alucard asks him and he nods, unable to answer through speechless lips. Alucard’s free hand slides underneath him, gripping at the small of his back to bring him closer. He’s so slick now, his cock so wet against Alucard he knows he won’t last much longer.

“Alucard—”

“My name.” There is a desperate edge to his voice, so sincere it brings tears to Hector’s eyes. “Say my name, please.”

_ “Adrian,” _ he sobs. “Oh, _ fuck, _Adrian.”

Adrian, he cries as his muscles clench, Adrian, as the silver thread of euphoria threatens to snap, Adrian, as his toes curl, his thighs tremble, his back arches, Adrian, Adrian, _ Adrian. _

A brilliant flash of lightning illuminates the room, followed by a deafening clap of thunder that shakes the castle around them, shatters the tension inside him and Hector comes like it’s the first time he’s ever done it in his life. Bright, white pleasure soars under his skin and sets every single nerve alight. Each wave of it wrings him dry. His hips stutter against Adrian’s in a fractured rhythm, his own spend pooling hot over his belly. Adrian gently takes hold of his chin, tilting Hector’s face up to watch him as he all but falls apart.

He comes down in a series of deep, shivery breaths, every muscle in his body slowly beginning to unfurl. Hector whimpers as Adrian’s body shifts between his legs, eyes rolling closed in the overstimulation of it. At the first twinge of discomfort on his expression, Adrian stops. Hector watches with wet eyes as he takes himself in hand.

“Kiss me,” he begs of him, desperate to touch him again even with the strength melting from his bones in the aftermath. Adrian pulls him close and kisses him like he’s dying, lips sliding messily over Hector’s as he dips his tongue inside. Hector feels it when he breaks, feels the rigid line of shoulders waver as his hips bear down one final time. Adrian hisses, a punishing “fuck,” ground into Hector’s mouth like a spell. He feels him come, feels each pulse of it as it joins his own on his stomach. His cock twitches vainly at the sensation, and when Adrian’s head drops to his heaving chest Hector holds him.

For several moments, they simply lie there against each other. Hector’s lungs heave in his chest as his heartbeat slows. He feels sluggish, dizzy with the endorphins still running rampant through his blood. The fatigue of it all is _ delicious. _

Adrian lazily kisses at his throat, licking at individual beads of sweat and stray splatters of come. Hector moans weakly at the feverish caress of his tongue. He pets lovingly at Adrian’s hair as the other man reaches for his shirt on the floor. Tenderly, dedicatedly, he begins to wipe away the mess that covers them both from chest to chin.

Once they are both cleaned to Adrian’s satisfaction, he curls in at Hector’s side to wrap an arm over his waist. Hector nestles in close to him, slotting a leg through Adrian’s own and hiding his face in his shoulder. Adrian skates his fingers over Hector’s arm with feather light touches that wander over his hip, up his spine and under his shoulder blade.

“Happy birthday, Hector.”

Hector smothers his smile into Adrian’s collarbone. Outside, the summer storm continues to rage overhead, and the thunder that crackles in the air is nearly enough to rival the that of his heart between his ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Thought I'd go ahead and give us all the very consensual sex scene we deserved, free of emotional manipulation and trauma!!!!!! Let me know what you guys though, please, I love reading your comments! I especially want to know what you all thought of this chapter :)


	21. Part XXI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to thank everyone for all the wonderful comments and feedback I've received since the last chapter was published. You guys are amazing, and I really, really appreciate every single one of you for reading. I haven't had as much time to write as I did before. I got picked up for a raid group in FFXIV so that's what I've been doing for 3-4 nights a week :B
> 
> moonsterm4 on twitter has made some INCREDIBLE art based on this fic, and I need you all to see it right now. Please go check them out, I'm LITERALLY dying. They've done a beautiful [portrait of Iri](https://twitter.com/moonsterm4/status/1239174051651715073), as well as a really gorgeous [illustration of Hector and Alucard](https://twitter.com/moonsterm4/status/1241013863157391360). I'm WEAK I tell you.
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [La Couleur Pourpre](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23217688). It's definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Hector is _ dying. _

Adrian trails his fingers in a ghostly touch over the sensitive tracks of his ribs, and Hector’s cock jerks against his tongue. He gasps, the breath shuddering from his body in a heated exhale. Short, tidy nails drag torturously over his stomach. They leave tiny lines in their wake, briefly pale against the tan of his skin. A sharp prick of pressure that sparks against the satin pull of pleasure threatening to swallow him whole.

His head swims. His lungs burn. Hector is drowning in thin air, his heart beating a desperate rhythm beneath his sternum as he sinks. He shuts his eyes against the sight of Adrian between his legs, because if he watches for too long it will all be over. The tousled, feathered curtain of his hair as he slowly bobs his head. The glistening and sticky smear of saliva and precome over his flushed cheek. The blistering cut of his golden eyes. It’s too _ much. _

He cannot keep his hands still. They bury themselves in the beautiful white silk of the bed, lingering there for only a moment before he reaches for Adrian’s face. His thumb trembles against the slick red of his lips, stretched over his soaked cock. Eventually they settle near the pillows under his head, one clutching frantically at the linens and the other reaching to cover his mouth with trembling fingers. It does little to stifle the sounds he makes.

Adrian’s touch wanders to the width of his thigh, digging tenderly into the soft flesh that is still littered with rosy lovebites. It is just enough to distract him, and when Hector hears the quick breath he takes it is already too late. He _ keens _ as Adrian takes him deeper, until he can feel the back of his throat. Hector squirms underneath him, trying his best not to choke him but at the same time aching to move. A strong, pale hand splays itself at the center of his pelvis and it stills him so that all he can do is lie there and quake.

“I’m going to spill,” he hisses in warning. The broken edge to his voice grates against his ears, accompanied as it is by the wet sounds of Adrian’s mouth. “Adrian, I’ll _ spill.” _

Adrian swallows around him once, and Hector whimpers as he pulls away after. He nuzzles his leaking cock, and Hector’s blood stutters reverently in his veins. He can feel the lethal smile against his damp skin, beautiful, sharp teeth hidden beneath clever lips. He presses a long, open mouthed kiss to the head of him and Hector knows immediately he will not survive this.

“Then _ spill,” _ Adrian murmurs, and then bows his head to take him down one more time. Hector sobs, the bitten off hiccup of it ringing sharp in the haze of the room. He digs his heels into the mattress and comes against Adrian’s tongue so hard he fears it may actually kill him. Feverish pleasure snaps like a livewire in his belly, flickering along his spine with each unforgiving lick to his flesh.

Adrian moans. The sound of it rips through Hector like a storm, muffled as it is around his cock. He feels it when Adrian swallows, the quiet flutter of his throat like a vice around his already spent body. Just as he opens his mouth to beg for mercy, it is granted to him. Adrian pulls away, and Hector watches as he wipes at his mouth with the side of his thumb, catching something milky and white at the corner of his lips. He fixes Hector with his eyes, trapping him with his gaze as he slowly sucks it into his mouth, licking the digit clean.

_ “Oh,” _ he breathes, a wave of fruitless heat flaring in the pit of his stomach. Adrian smirks as he sits back on his knees. He pulls his long hair over one shoulder, fingers trailing over the swan like length of his neck. Hector reaches for him, hands finding purchase in his white nightshirt, so very like the one he wears himself. He tugs once and Adrian follows easily. He settles in beside Hector on the bed to trail wet kisses at his shoulder.

“Are you tired?” he asks.

“A little.” Hector grins to himself, tilting his head to offer more of his throat. “You are _ very _ good at that.”

Adrian chuckles. “I know. And you,” he dips his tongue into the hollow between Hector’s collarbones, making him shiver, “are remarkably sensitive.”

Hector winces. “Sorry.”

“Oh, no.” A fingertip skates over his hip, and he bites his cheek to stifle the sigh it draws from him. “It’s endearing. I like it.”

The reassurance slightly assuages the fragile wave of self-consciousness that grips him, but Hector still hides his face in Adrian’s throat. He savors the scent of him there: bright, clean ozone accompanied by the slightest hint of flowers. Orange blossom, he realizes, as he drags his nose behind the shell of Adrian’s ear. His hair is perfumed with it, and as Hector breathes him in he absentmindedly presses a kiss just under the hinge of his jaw.

The easy sigh it coaxes from Adrian spurs him on. Hector sweeps his tongue over the steady pulse that beats under creamy skin and delights in the pleased noise it gets him. Suddenly feeling bold, he rolls them so that he can settle over top him. His heart swells as Adrian _ lets _ him, knowing full well the strength that lies coiled in the body beneath his own. If he wanted, Adrian could so easily push him away. He doesn’t.

Hector marvels at the man stretched out over the pillows below him. Adrian tugs at the pliant flesh of his bottom lip with sharp, pearly teeth, his hands splayed complacently over the silk under him. His back arches against Hector as he moves, and Hector can feel him at his hip, hard and hot against his bare skin. Slowly, gingerly, he draws his fingers down between his legs.

“You don’t have to,” he tells Hector, gently grasping at his wrist.

“I want to.” Hector whispers it against his mouth. “Please?”

Adrian laughs softly. “In that case, I suppose I won’t stop you.”

He tries not to let his hands betray his nervousness as he rucks the nightshirt up Adrian’s middle. From this angle, knelt as he is beneath Adrian’s splayed thighs, it affords him a better vantage point to actually _ see _ him. His cock, appropriately like the rest of him, is long and elegant; longer than his own, but not quite as thick. Crowned in neat, golden curls, and flushed pink and dusky at the head, Hector faintly runs the back of his knuckles over the length of him and Adrain hisses.

He knows, as he swallows against his dry throat, that he is not quite brave enough just yet to taste him. But _ God, _ as Hector watches him, greedily drowning in the sight of Adrian’s slack mouth, his heavy lidded eyes and his tousled hair, he aches to touch him. He may lack the intuition, the experience Adrian clearly has over him, but Hector has always prided himself in being a quick study. He curls his fingers around him, tugging loosely at first just to watch the exquisite agony of it flicker over Adrian’s face. As he tightens his grip, his thumb digs firmly into the strand of skin just beneath the head. Adrian’s hips nearly roll up and off the mattress.

He knows his pace falters a tiny bit as he leans forward to press a tender kiss over Adrian’s sternum, but the fingers gripping desperately at the back of his shirt lead him to believe it goes mostly unnoticed. Adrian’s heart pitches underneath his cheek. Hector kisses over the sweat-damp skin of his chest until he reaches a pebbled nipple, left bare by the wide collar of the nightshirt. The memory of Adrian’s lips at him here, of the pleasure that had slithered behind his navel, inspires him to draw it into his mouth. He laves the flat of his tongue over it, and Adrian slips his hand down the back of his clothes to lightly scratch between the wings of his shoulder blades. Hector groans, his spent cock twitching vainly against a milk white thigh. He carelessly scrapes his teeth over Adrian, and just as he means to apologize, worried it may have hurt him, the utterly debauched moan that tumbles from Adrian’s lips stuns him.

His mind reels with the realization that Dracula’s son enjoys being _ bitten. _

“Hector, don’t_ stop,” _ Adrian whines petulantly, and he realizes that he’d stilled his hand in his astonishment. His ears burn a bit as he strokes Adrian again. His thumb slides against the wet head of him and Adrian tosses his head back against the pillows.

Boldly, Hector kisses his way up over the hard ridge of a prominent clavicle until he reaches the graceful line of Adrian’s throat. His blood roars in his ears as he hesitates, gathering as much courage as he has left to him, and sinks his blunt, human teeth into the delicate skin there. He squeezes his fingers at the same time, and Adrian gasps a shocked cry above him. Hector feels him shiver, feels the lurch of his cock in his hand as Adrian comes all over his own belly. He clutches at Hector, at his clothes and his body as though trying to anchor himself against the rush of it.

It had not been a savage bite, but he soothes over the faint indentations of his teeth with a kiss all the same. Adrian _ whimpers _ as he does it, tiny sounds caught thickly in his throat as he breathes. Hector pulls back just a bit. He flexes his hand, now starting to cramp in the aftermath of adrenaline, and as he does he notices the small splash of Adrian’s seed over the first knuckle of his index finger. Curiosity grips him then. The image of Adrian himself licking his thumb clean, grinning at the taste of Hector’s come has all but burned itself into his mind’s eye. He absentmindedly lifts it to his lips.

The taste is… not entirely pleasant. He does manage to avoid making a face, but he cannot say he enjoys the flavor. The cloying musk of it lingers heady and bitter over his tongue. It is familiar, yet not. His stomach roils at the memory that swirls there, but he adamantly blocks that train of thought before it ruins this. This is not the same, Hector reminds himself. _ Adrian _ is not the same.

_ “Christ, _Hector.”

He blinks at the groan of his name. He lowers his eyes to Adrian’s, amazed at the heat he finds there as he realizes he was being _ watched. _Brazenly, Hector meets his gaze and continues to suck his hand clean.

Adrian surges up underneath him, a hand coming to grip the back of his head. He kisses him, greedy tongue and teeth as he all but tries to lick the taste of himself from Hector’s mouth. Hector grins, content to let himself be utterly devoured.

Adrian gets up to clean himself of the mess, and Hector curls on his side as he waits for him to come back to bed. He slowly drums his fingertips over his kiss-bruised lips, transfixed by the remnant sensation he can still feel there. The evening had been a rather eventful one for them, with the castle to themselves and the rain to keep them inside. After their abandoned picnic, and the subsequent lark in the sitting room, they had wandered rain-drenched and chilled into the baths in the lower floors. Their bath had been similarly less than productive, lasting twice as long as it probably should have. It had left him feeling boneless and heavy-headed, in the same way he does now. After a fast, simple meal, Hector had ended up here, in Adrian’s bed, wearing one of Adrian’s nightshirts and his eyes following the man himself from across the room.

A peculiar sense of _ yearning _ takes up residence in the hollows of his heart. It is exacerbated by his empty arms, the spaces between his fingers without another pair of hands to fill them. Hector gazes at Adrian in silent awe, mystified as he watches him. He stands over his desk, leafing through papers left there. The most mundane of tasks, his hip leant into the wooden edge, and yet Hector cannot tear his eyes away. Cannot stifle the longing that consumes him.

He had never known it was possible to miss someone from only a few feet away.

“Come back to bed?”

The request tumbles from his lips before he can think to hold it back, and when Adrian looks to him Hector finds he does not regret asking. His answering smile is so warm, so tender, he feels utterly undone just by the curve of his mouth.

“My apologies,” he chuckles, sliding his papers away. He leaves the desk to navigate the short distance back to the canopied bed. The mattress dips under his weight. Adrian drapes himself over Hector where he lies, supporting himself with one arm. A gentle fingertip traces at the faint freckles dusted over the bridge of his nose. “I did not mean to leave you unattended.”

_ “Unattended,” _ Hector parrots. He idly worries at the collar of the nightshirt where it gapes over Adrian’s collarbones. “You make me sound like some… frail, highborn lady in a tower, crying out for a prince.”

“I was thinking more like a spoiled pasha in want of his consort.” Adrian tilts his head in amusement, the golden curtain of his hair falling past his shoulder. “I’ll remind you that you _ are _in a tower, and that you have indeed spent the better part of an hour crying out for something.”

Blood rushes to his face in the form of a fierce blush. His ears grow warm with it. “That was very cruel,” he says, though a playful smirk stretches stubbornly at his mouth.

“Oh, I am _ cruel _ now, am I?” Adrian grins at him now, his beautiful teeth on full display in the gloom of the candle light. “Have I been cruel to you tonight?”

“Unbearably so—” He is cut off by an involuntary yelp as questing fingers pluck at the ticklish flesh just below his navel, muscles jumping under his skin.

“Then you should like to see me when I’m feeling kind, Hector. You might not survive it.”

A residual flare of heat coils low in his gut. Exhausted as he is from hours of Adrian’s dedicated attentions, it does little but inspire a full-bodied shudder, a bitten lip as he revels in the hands upon him. Hector tangles his hands in Adrian’s silken hair to coax him near. The kiss he is granted is slow and soft, everything he wants before he even thinks to ask.

Adrian falls into bed beside him. Curled close under his sheets, Hector wraps his arms around the solid width of his shoulders. Adrian tucks himself below his chin. He again trails idle kisses at the line of his throat. Hector sighs, his lips pressed firmly to the white gold crown of his hair.

“I love you,” Adrian whispers to him, the words muffled into Hector’s heartbeat. They grip at him, holding him as tightly as the man who had uttered them. Tears prickle suddenly at his eyes. He buries his cheek into soft hair, breathing in orange blossom and clean sweat and sex. It is the happiest he has ever been in his life. Every new day he spends in this castle, with this man, is the happiest he has ever been.

“I love you too,” he murmurs back to him. It almost catches in his lungs, foreign and timidly eager as the words still are to him, but he means it. With every bit of himself he has left to him, he means it.

“Happy birthday, Hector.”

The sentiment makes him laugh, airy and tearful as it shivers on his breath.

“Thank you,” he tells Adrian, and it is for far more than this day. Far more than pastries in the morning, for his place here in this castle, for healing him when he would surely have died. In this man’s arms, in his eyes, Hector finds _ peace. _Peace from the despair that lurks in the far, cobweb-mired corners of his mind, taking the shape of vicious claws and unyielding teeth. Peace from the darkness that has chased him out of his own heart, snapping at his heels everywhere he turns. Peace from every hand that has ever reached for him and pulled back to leave him that much lesser for it.

In Adrian’s arms, in his bed, in his castle, Hector nearly feels _ whole _again.

* * *

Adrian wakes to a faceful of silvery curls and an arm snugly slung over his waist. Soft, warm breath flutters over his shoulder, and as he opens his eyes he comes to find it is because Hector’s lips are sleepily pressed to the skin there. The man still dreams beside him, curled languidly against his chest. One of his hands is loosely fisted in the front of his nightshirt.

Mid-morning sunlight colors the room in a dusty glow. There is no sign of the storm that had driven them back indoors the day before, save for the glittering drops left behind on the windows and the puddles that drench the land outside. Adrian drowsily scrubs at his face, palm settling over his eyes as he wonders if perhaps the rain had been good for the flowers in the garden.

Some of Hector’s hair has fallen to hang in his face, and without even realizing he does it, Adrian moves to sweep it behind his ear. His fingers hover there afterwards. He takes a moment to appreciate the beauty of Hector’s sleeping face. The sharp, handsome cut of his features against the pillow beneath him, relaxed as they are in slumber. His strong, expressive brow is slack, his full lips a plush weight against the rounded bone of his shoulder. He looks beautiful like this, veiled in dewy morning light. In Adrian’s sheets. He takes another moment to simply stare, something small for himself before they have to leave the tiny haven of his bed.

He presses a fleeting kiss to Hector’s forehead to wake him. The body next to him begins to stir: the tilt of his face away from the light, brows furrowing as he claws his way back towards the waking world. His eyes open then, blue and bleary as they squint against the sun. Adrian feels him stretch, the gratifying shudder of it pulling a quiet groan from him.

“Good morning,” he mutters, more to the pillow than to Adrian himself. Adrian slowly runs his hand down the length of Hector’s spine, counting the divots between each vertebrae. Hector arches into the touch. Like a cat, he thinks. He delights in the appreciative sigh it earns him.

“Good morning.” He is defenseless against the blissful smile that blankets his lips. “Sleep well?”

Hector groans. “Like a rock.” He buries his face in Adrian’s collar so that his next words are muffled. “I suppose I was… unusually tired.”

“Oh?” he drawls. He can feel Hector try to smother his growing smile into his neck. “Are you feeling well? I’m a trained physician; perhaps I can be of some help.”

“I have a feeling you’d be more of a _ hindrance _ than help.”

Adrian kisses him, and the tentative touch of Hector’s tongue does more to wake him than the sun ever could. He tastes of stale sleep, thoroughly human and undeniably perfect. It thrills him when tanned and slender fingers tangle themselves in his hair, not firmly enough to pull but just enough to linger. Adrian slides a muscled thigh between Hector’s, encouraged by the heated flesh he finds there. Hector sucks in a bright gasp.

“Am I hindering you now, Hector?” he asks him.

“I…” He trails off as Adrian’s mouth finds the join between jaw and neck. He pulls his leg back a bit and Hector’s spine undulates beneath his hand to chase the brief point of contact. “Adrian, I—” The rest of the sentence is trapped behind his teeth as they dig into his bottom lip. He clutches at a pale hip as though trying to ground himself, but it only aids in bringing them closer together.

“Is this all right?” Adrian asks him, and Hector nods frantically, brows drawn tightly over his eyes.

“Yes,” he breathes, “yes, please, I want to—”

_ “Here.”_

Adrian drags him close, rolls so that Hector can properly straddle him. He plants his heels into the bed, hooks his fingers around the back of Hector’s thighs and ruts up and into him. The velvety glide of their cocks is a delicious burn that all but hollows him out. He does it again, reveling in the lost sounds that spill from Hector’s mouth.

It takes almost no time at all for them to unravel that way. Hector trembles above him with each thrust down into Adrian’s body. He slides slick and easy over him, hips stuttering to keep up. Adrian clamps his mouth around his pulse and _ sucks, _worrying the skin between his more human teeth but carefully allowing Hector the barest hint of his fangs. The fingers in his hair tighten, only barely enough to tug, and Adrian groans against the flesh beneath his lips. Hector immediately lets go.

“Sorry,” he whines, and Adrian shakes his head, soothes his tongue over the beautiful bruise blooming under Hector’s skin. He would beg him to do it again, to take a proper fistful and _ pull, _but the desperation he tastes in Hector’s sweat is more than enough to yank him straight to the edge. He scales short, rounded nails down between Hector’s shoulder blades. He feels it then, the coil of orgasm welling in Hector’s trembling muscles as he pants into Adrian’s ear. He crushes him close, dragging him down with a hand at the small of his back in time with each frenzied drive of his hips.

Hector moans sharply, the sound of it cutting through the haze that had settled around them. His head falls to rest over Adrian’s sternum as he falls utterly apart.

“I’m coming,” he chokes, “Adrian, I’m _ coming—” _

_ “Shit—” _

Adrian snakes a hand between them to take hold of their cocks, drowning in Hector’s strangled sob as his other clutches at a scarred hip. Hector’s fingers twist in the pillow below his head as he writhes. He strokes both of them through it, and at the first hot flood of seed over his navel Adrian comes alongside him. He grinds up into Hector, swallowing the wanton sounds he makes as they shatter against each other. He drinks in every strained whimper, each oversensitive lurch of their bodies as they wreck each other.

The golden miasma of afterglow paints everything slow and languid as they come down. Hector sags against him, stifling a broken keen against his shoulder. Adrian catches his breath against the sweat-damp hair at his temple. His eyes fall on the ardent lovebite he’d left behind at Hector’s throat. Transfixed, he tenderly skates the whorled pad of his thumb over it.

It abruptly occurs to him in that moment that Sypha and Trevor would undoubtedly be returning from their overnight stay in the village very soon, if not already, and that none of Hector’s shirts have a collar high enough to hide the mess he’s made of his neck.

“The answer to your question,” Hector mutters, “is yes, by the way.”

“My question?”

“Earlier, when you asked if you were hindering me.” He turns his head, resting his cheek against the slowing beat of Adrian’s heart. “You have. Hindered me, that is. I may just fall straight back to sleep after that.”

“That would be a shame. I was thinking we might find something for breakfast.”

With the mention of food, Hector’s stomach gives a noisy protest at the idea of being left behind in bed. He winces self consciously. “Perhaps breakfast would be best.”

Adrian does his best to wipe them clean of their combined spend with the sheet, not caring whit as to his soiled bed linens. They reluctantly disentangle themselves to get up, and it nearly breaks his heart to do so. He searches his wardrobe for something that might better fit his overnight guest while Hector busies himself at the wash basin. Over the quiet sounds of splashing water, he hears a shocked exhalation.

_ “Adrian,” _Hector breathes, turning his head in the mirror that hangs from the wall. He gingerly touches at the ruddy bruise sitting high under his jaw.

Adrian grimaces sheepishly at him.

“And how am I meant to hide this, then?”

“It’s not so bad,” he lies. Hector gives him a long-suffering look.

“It looks as though I’ve been attacked by a man-sized leech.”

He steps behind Hector to wrap his arms around his waist, chin coming to rest on his shoulder. He kisses slowly at the offending spot. A silent apology to the abused skin there. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely. “I’ll not do it again.”

“Just…” Hector bashfully covers the mark with his hand. “Try to be a little bit more conspicuous in the future, please?”

He nods in understanding. “If you like, you could leave one on me to match.”

Hector scoffs, trying to play off an amused smile. He turns around in Adrian’s arms, crossing his own over his chest. “Yes. And we both know that would last all of about a minute before it disappeared.”

“The offer still stands.”

Hector leans forward to kiss him. His lips are soft against Adrian’s. Poignant. He touches their foreheads together, eyes sliding closed as adoration unfurls significant and powerful behind his breastbone. Love. Hector presses his cheek against him.

“We should get dressed,” he tells him, and Adrian is reluctant to agree.

Trevor and Sypha have indeed already made the trek back from the village. They have both made themselves back at home in the kitchen, and when he sees them there is little he can do to combat the compulsive grin that overtakes his face. Hector trails in after him, his hand nervously attempting to cover the bright red mark on his neck.

“There you are!” Sypha calls to them. There is something in her arms, he realizes as she rushes to greet him with a kiss to his cheek. She beams happily at Hector as she holds out her armful of cloak-wrapped spoils. He rushes to accept them before they fall to the ground.

“What’s this?” he asks her.

“Happy birthday, Hector! I tried to keep them dry, and I think I may have managed to for the most part.”

Hector’s genuine, happy smile as he sets about unwrapping Sypha’s offering. Adrian sits beside Trevor at the table. He rests his chin in his hand as he watches. Tightly bundled in Sypha’s blue Speaker cloak is a small stack of books, topped with a brand new, very fine pair of gardening gloves.

“I…” Hector’s voice is bright with delighted surprise as he picks up the gloves, feeling at the quality of the leather. “I needed a new pair of these.”

“The gloves are from Trevor. The books are just a few I found that I thought looked interesting. Alucard mentioned how much you love to read, and that’s something we have in common.”

As Hector’s eyes turn to his new books, Adrian spares a glance at Trevor. “No one-eyed peddlers at the market yesterday?”

Trevor shrugs, yawning into his hand. “Nor clubfooted ones. Looks like you got lucky.”

Hector is quiet for several moments, face soft with gratitude. “Thank you,” he all but whispers. His eyes land upon all three of them as he says it. “I can’t remember the last time I was given a birthday present. This means a lot. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay either of you.”

“They’re gifts, Hector.” Trevor’s voice is more subdued than Alucard thinks he may have ever heard it. “There is nothing to repay.”

“... Thank you. I’m grateful.”

Adrian watches fondly as Hector examines his gifts. Within seconds he is utterly engrossed in them, inspecting them from cover to cover with a pensive look on his face. Sypha’s welcome chatter is a comfort to them all. Lost in the gentle flickering of Hector’s lashes as he scans the pages, he almost misses it when his name is called.

“Alucard,” Sypha repeats, and when he finally gives her his attention she has a knowing smirk on her face.

“Yes?”

“Trevor and I were talking about the rain yesterday.”

“Were we?” Trevor mutters good naturedly.

“We were,” she reaffirms. “I hope it didn’t completely ruin the plans you made.”

A warm rush of affection hums sweetly under his skin. Adrian risks one more look at Hector. The man is lost to them, completely absorbed in his gifted tomes.

“Not entirely, no,” he answers her.

“The two of you managed to, um… find something to do indoors?”

Trevor makes a sour face at the words, his nose wrinkling in warning. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Sypha pouts. “It was a simple question.”

“No it wasn't.” Trevor gives her a muted glare, straightening uncomfortably in his chair. “So stop. The very last thing I want to think about before breakfast is—”

“Speaking of breakfast!” Sypha suddenly stands, her hands splayed cheerfully over the surface of the table. “I’ll get started on that. We weren’t here to celebrate yesterday, so we might as well make do for this morning.

As she heads toward the stove, Trevor gives Alucard a panicked look.

“Please help her,” he beseeches him. “I was so looking forward to something actually edible today, and I doubt you want your castle to go up in flames.”

“Not particularly.” Adrian stands to follow her. Before he leaves, he lays a kiss at the crown of Hector’s head. Trevor catches his eye before he turns around, his finger pointing notedly at the side of his own neck.

_ ‘Really?’ _he mouths accusingly at him, and Adrian grins smugly as he goes to help Sypha muddle her way through breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading! Please leave a comment with some feedback, I love to read them :)


	22. Part XXII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! Sorry this chapter took so long to get out; we can all agree it's been a crazy couple of weeks. I'm actually working on a modern Hectorcard AU right now as well, so I would like to get the first chapter for that finished and then alternate weeks between posting for both of these fics. Or try to at least!!!!
> 
> Please look at this beautiful portrait of [Aria](https://twitter.com/moonsterm4/status/1246292677026402306?s=20) I commissioned from moonsterm4 on twitter ;_; They also did some really adorable drawings of the girls with a tiny baby Hector and I can't get over it.
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [La Couleur Pourpre](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23217688). It's definitely worth the read!

Adrian double and triple checks his bag. He accounts for his tools, his instruments and his patients’ notes. There are some general treatments he always carries with him: a few tonics and salves, useful for all sorts of ailments until a specialized treatment could be provided. There is an anatomy he likes to keep with him for reference, as well as one of his mother’s journals. Discoveries she’d made herself as she navigated the study of medicine, and thus far they have indeed proven invaluable.

Satisfied with the state of his inventory, he fastens the buckles into place and throws the bag over his shoulder. Hector watches him from the doorway, his own satchel clutched in his hands. His fingers cling to the strap. His face is drawn and anxious as Adrian meets his eyes.

“You have everything you need?” he asks him.

“Yes.” Hector nods stonily. “I believe so.”

“You’re sure?”

“I could use a drink.”

He chuckles at that. “Perhaps when we get back, then.” He makes no mention of the fact that they have only just finished breakfast.

The day outside is warm, but not overly so. As early as it is, the heat has not yet had a chance to sap the land dry of its glistening sheen of dew. It coats their boots as they walk. Hector trails at Adrian’s side, his eyes firmly trained on the ground.

“It’s beautiful today, isn’t it?”

Hector does not respond outright. He makes a noncommittal noise behind his closed lips. Adrian offers a comforting hand at the small of his back. He gives him an encouraging smile as they continue on.

Hector stops when they reach the threshold of the Belmont Estate. He stares out at the road stretched before them, and Adrian can hear the flutter of his heart behind his sternum. It is racing.

“Hector.”

He is awarded the bright blue of his eyes, mired as they are in uncertainty. He reaches for his hand, filling the spaces between his tanned fingers with his own fair ones. Hector lets out a long, shaky breath.

“It’s all right,” Adrian reassures him. “I’ll be right here beside you, every step of the way.”

It is the farthest he will ever have been from the castle since the day he arrived. Since two wary and desperate faeries arrived on his doorstep with a wheezing, frail, _ dying _ forgemaster in their arms. That had been months ago. Adrian will admit that at times it feels like years, for the both of them, but as he watches the thoughts one by one as they cross Hector’s face, watches the uneasy twist of his mouth, he wonders just where all of those weeks have gone.

In the beginning, Hector would not even let Adrian touch him. Now, as he musters the courage to take another step, he clings to his hand like a lifeline. An anchor in the midst of the turmoil that sweeps over him. Adrian takes the first step for him, turning to look back as he waits. He would wait as long as Hector needed. Hours. Days. Years, if he had to.

Hector surprises him then. His feet mirror that initial step he’d taken, planting him firmly at his side. He follows Adrian so inherently, as though the thought of being left behind were so out of the realm of possibility his body openly rejects it. Adrian fights down the sudden swell of emotion in his throat, the fond prickle at the corners of his eyes. He puts on a brave face.

“Shall we?” he asks, and he gently strokes his thumb over Hector’s knuckles. He sees his face soften at the small touch. Adrian nearly misses the faint nod of his head, so caught up is he in the way Hector’s timid gaze finds his own.

“Let’s go.” His voice is hesitant, but there is determination to be found there. It lifts Adrian’s spirits to hear it.

He knows the outside world, the vast expanse of it beyond the safety and defenses of the castle, will never be entirely safe for Hector. Not until Carmilla is dead; not even then. That said, there is comfort in the daylight as it illuminates the path ahead of them, golden patches of it filtering through the trees. There is gratification for the long, lethal sword at his hip. Peace in the precious thrum of life at Hector’s wrist. He keeps his thumb pressed there as they walk, a quiet reassurance for himself, a reminder to Hector that he is there. That whatever may come their way, he will be here to face it with him.

Their walk is, blessedly, met with nothing exciting. There is simply the birdsong drifting to them from the trees, the dark fragrance of the summer-sticky earth in their lungs. The dappled rays of sunlight briefly paint Hector’s face as they pass underneath, glittering patterns of leaves over his skin. The nervous edge to his pulse does not entirely disappear; Adrian can still smell the stale, acidic fear that sits in him. Like cold sweat and bitter lemons, high and bright in his throat. Beneath it, though, is a frail sense of wonder. He had hoped the change in scenery would aid in lifting Hector’s spirits; a small silver lining to the daunting prospect of leaving the castle. He spies the glimmer in pensive, blue eyes, the tiny, awed gape to his lips, and it alleviates some of the weight from atop his heart.

“Sonia’s family has an apple orchard,” he tells Hector, leaning in so their shoulders touch. Hector turns his head to look at him, broken out of his focus on the greenery around them.

“Oh?”

“It’s their staple crop through summer and autumn; during the colder months they grow root vegetables, mostly turnips and potatoes.”

“Is that where the apples in the kitchen kept coming from?”

Adrian chuckles. “Yes. I’m hardly allowed out of their door without a basket for myself.”

They take a right at a fork in the road that leads them out of the wood. Fields of farmland spread out over the land, quilts of worked soil in varying shades of green and brown. Adrian can see the cottage in the distance, flanked by sprawling apple trees and tilled earth. Hector lets go of his hand as they get closer, adjusting the strap of his bag over his shoulder.

“All right, master Tepes?”

Hector jumps beside him at the sound of the voice. Adrian offers a steadying touch between his shoulder blades. He finds Grigore at the other side of the fence, halfway up a ladder leant against one of the trees.

“Good morning, Grigore,” he calls politely. “How fares your orchard?”

“Well enough, given this heat. The boy and I have had a hell of a time keeping the trees watered.” Grigore descends a few rungs down the ladder to get a better look at them. He wipes his brow on his sleeve. His sun-worn face brightens in surprise to see Hector. “I see you’ve brought a friend.”

“Yes; this is Hector.” He cannot help the fond flare of pride in his breast as he introduces them. Hector fidgets at the attention now turned upon him. “He is here to help me mix a new tonic for Mariana.”

“She’ll be well glad to see the two of you, then. Her aches usually get better with the warmer weather, but lately they’ve been giving her no end of trouble.”

“I suspected as such.” Adrian nods to Grigore, calmly steering Hector to follow him. “We shall leave you to your apples, then.”

“Right; she’ll be inside with Sonia, like she usually is. Nice meeting you, mister Hector.”

Hector blinks for a moment at having been addressed. Before he can respond in kind, though, Grigore has climbed back up the ladder and into the branches of the tree. He looks to Adrian, bewildered, and swallows down his half-formed reply. Adrian gives him a small, affirming smile.

The door to the house is open, no doubt to let the breeze in, but he still knocks lightly upon the wood. Sonia’s voice calls to him from inside, and when the woman herself appears at the threshold she grins broadly when she sees him.

“Adrian!” She wipes her hands at the apron draped over her skirt. “My, you are a sight for sore eyes. Come in, please.” She ushers the both of them into the shade of her home. The kitchen smells of fresh apples and cinnamon. Her table is dusted over with flour and neat squares of raw pastry ready to be baked. “I was just in the middle of making something for you to take home; time must have gotten away from me.”

“We are a bit early,” he says apologetically. “And you need not go to the trouble, Sonia, the apples are more than enough—”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” Her gaze lands on Hector where he lingers at Adrian’s back. The crow’s feet at her eyes crinkle with the warm smile she gives him. “You must be Hector.” Sonia holds out a hand, stained and dusty with cinnamon. Hector gives her palm a tentative glance. His mouth opens as he tries to speak, and Adrian watches in hushed surprise as he reaches out to shake her hand.

“I am,” he tells her quietly.

“Adrian has told us so much about you. I’m so glad we finally have the chance to meet. You’re the young man who grows the roses?”

“Yes.”

“Mama simply adores them. She can’t spend much time outside, you see, so the flowers mean a lot to her. You’ll have to remind her, Adrian,” she says to him, “she’d love to thank you herself.”

“I will. She is in here?” he asks, tilting his head towards the back of the house

“Yes!” Sonia holds her hands up at him. “Don’t let me keep you. She’s not been well since you were last here.”

Hector follows him towards the small room adjacent to the kitchen. He raps softly at the closed door, waiting for the reedy “come in,” before opening it. Mariana is seated comfortably in a well-worn rocking chair near the room’s only window. Her hazy eyes brighten when they land upon him.

“Little Adrian,” she greets him as he pulls the strap of his satchel over his head. He drops it beside the chair and kneels beside her. One of her gnarled and swollen hands reaches for him. He takes it readily in his own.

“Hello, Mariana.”

“I had a feeling you would be back soon.” She laughs joyfully. “My daughter has been talking for weeks about making you _ plăcintă cu mere. _”

“I’m afraid we interrupted her baking when we arrived.”

“My recipe, you know,” she tells him, giving him a sly wink. “The trick is to mix the apples in lemon juice after they’re grated, so they don’t brown.”

“Is that so?” Adrian opens his bag to pull out a stethoscope, unearthing his logs as he does so. He flips through the pages with one hand until he finds the entries dedicated to Mariana. He can feel her gaze wandering past him as he works, until it lands upon Hector where he lingers sheepishly at the door.

“And who is this?” she asks, craning her thin neck. Adrian smiles to himself.

“This is Hector,” he tells her.

“Hector, is it?” Marian gives him a welcoming wave, beckoning him closer. “I’m sorry, dear, but my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Come a bit closer and let us have a look at you.”

He takes her pulse to the sound of Hector’s cautious footsteps. He stops just in front of the chair, shifting restlessly where he stands. He offers a small “hello,” to her, and Mariana beams at him.

“Hector. That sounds so familiar. Ah! You’re the boy who grows my roses, aren’t you?” Astonished that she remembers, Adrian turns his head. Hector simply nods in answer. “Oh, I can’t tell you how much I love it when Adrian brings them for me. The most beautiful roses I have ever seen. I used to grow flowers myself, back when we lived in Lupu.”

“Really?” Hector breathes.

“I did! I had a little garden of my own outside our house. I used to try and pay your mother in tulips, Adrian, as _ she _ would never take any money, either. Sometimes she could be persuaded, though. She was ever so fond of lilies.”

“You knew Dr. Tepes?”

He blinks at the genuine curiosity in Hector’s voice.

“Since she and Sonia were girls. She was a blessing to us when my poor Felix passed, God rest his soul. There was nothing to be done for him, of course, but Lisa made certain he left us without suffering. Do you remember, Adrian?”

“I do,” he admits as he slips the blood pressure cuff around her arm. Mariana pays him no mind as he continues with his tests.

“She used to bring you along some days. Oh, how my granddaughters used to argue over who got to watch him,” she says to Hector. Adrian weathers the praise with good humour. “The sweetest, happiest child you could ever meet. You used to let them braid all that lovely blond hair. _ Never _fussed or complained a bit. A little angel, just like his mother.”

His heart catches a bit at the memories of his mother with Mariana’s family. He did indeed remember visiting their home with her. He remembers the girls, Ana and Livia, both grown and with children of their own now. He remembers sitting atop Sonia’s kitchen table in Lupu as she’d baked for them then, dutifully tasting everything she gave to him for quality. He remembers his mother holding him close after Felix had died, her lips warm at his brow as the family had grieved. He remembers how _ happy _ he had been with them as a boy. The sudden wave of nostalgia and longing that crests over his heart shocks him. He often talked with Mariana about his mother, but never before had it left him feeling so fragile.

It is beyond humbling to be reminded, again and again, that there were people who knew her for the brilliant, selfless woman she was.

He manages to compose himself as he finishes his examination, face partially hidden by the curtain of his hair. He gingerly takes Mariana’s hand in his, feeling at the joints of her knuckles.

“I am going to test each of your fingers for flexibility,” he tells her as she regales Hector with a story of him as a boy involving a spider in the garden. “Tell me if it starts to hurt.”

He carefully watches her face as he bends each, stopping each time she grimaces. The inflammation has gotten worse, and he makes a thorough note of it in his log.

“Noticeable decrease in range of motion,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. Adrian looks to Hector then. “Let us try the version with the willow bark first.”

Hector nods silently to him. He quietly excuses himself from the room to mix their decided upon tonic, his hands already opening his bag to dig through it. Adrian smiles wistfully as he watches him go.

“My, my.” Mariana touches his chin. Adrian once again gives her his attention. Her worn face is both familiar and difficult to read. There is a wise and knowing look to her cloudy eyes, one that makes him feel very, very young. “You poor, besotted boy,” she coos. 

Instinctual panic strikes through him like lightning. Fear manifests as a cold weight down his spine as he remembers the world that exists beyond Castlevania’s doors. The people in it who would never understand what he and Hector have together. Who would even _ hate _ them for it. “Mariana—”

The old woman shakes her head. “You have nothing to fear from anyone in this house, my darling. God would never bless us with something so beautiful as the love in your eyes and declare it a sin.” She shakily smoothes a lock of his hair behind his ear. “It is the same look your mother wore whenever she talked about going home to your father.”

This time the tears get the better of him because he _ knows _ which look she is talking about. Seen it on his mother’s face nearly every day of his life, seen it mirrored on his father’s from the shadows. Adrian shivers as he draws in a long breath. Mariana’s ancient thumbs gently chase the tears as they spill down his cheek.

“I am frightened.” He hates the words as they leave his lips. “When he leaves the room, I feel… lost_. _ Like a piece has been broken away from me. It is _ terrifying. _ If I were to lose him, I don’t… It is too much to bear.”

“Then you must take care of him, Adrian Tepes. Let him take care of you in kind.” She chuckles to herself. “If he looks after you even half as well as he does his roses, I’d say you have nothing to fear.”

That makes him laugh. The sound from his mouth is tearful and high-strung, but no less heartfelt for the emotion that precedes it. Adrian pulls himself back together. He dries his face of tears, puts his belongings back into his bag.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs as he stands. He wipes the dust from the knees of his trousers. “I’ve forgotten to bring you a flower today.”

“Sweet boy. It is enough to see your face every once in a while. And that of your friend! I haven’t had so many visitors since Easter.” She pats caringly at his hand. “Do tell your young man, though, that I should like one more rose before summer is over.”

“I shall tell him.”

His young man, as it happens, is currently preoccupied in the kitchen. Adrian watches fondly as he teaches Sonia how to prepare the revised tonic. It is a formula Hector had painstakingly developed himself, loosely based on his mother’s original recipe. This particular iteration contained white willow bark, in addition to echinacea. The preparation is similar enough to the original that Sonia should have no problem replicating it on her own, but some of the steps had been altered.

Adrian leans his head against the wall as he looks on. Hector’s hands are steady as he works, as comfortable with a mortar and pestle as he imagines he had once been with a forging hammer. His voice is confident in his explanation, at home in the knowledge he imparts. There is a delicate glimmer in his eyes that Adrian has only ever witnessed before in private. In the sterile light of their laboratory as they hash over their methods, in the quiet repose of the library as Hector reads him a particularly engaging passage of his book, or in the heated gloom of his bedroom, completely helpless in keeping their hands to themselves. It is dedication. Purpose. _ Passion. _

“I use distilled water,” he hears Hector tell her, “but you can boil the well water here and strain it through clean cheesecloth.”

“Strain it before or after boiling?”

“Both; as many times as you can, changing the cheesecloth in between. It’s not optimal, but it will work.”

When they are done, Hector tries to fumble his way through Sonia’s friendly small talk. She either does not seem to notice how rusty he is at this, or she simply does not mind. Adrian hears her ask him if he is married, and Hector actually laughs.

“No,” he answers with an amused shake of his head. “Never really pictured myself being married.”

“Really? I know there are plenty of young girls who would be happy to remedy that for you. The same girls who look miserably on every time Adrian leaves the village without so much as a glance in their direction.”

“Oh, I don’t—”

“Sonia,” Adrian interjects, not too eager to try and explain to her just _ why _ neither he nor Hector are currently looking to be betrothed, “let me know if this formula works better. The rheumatism seems to be worsening; it would be best to get a handle on it now, while it’s still manageable.”

“I will. Thank you, by the way, to both of you. These past couple of weeks have been difficult.”

“It’s no trouble.”

Despite his protestations, she fills a basket for them of her freshly made _ plăcintă cu mere, _insisting that they not leave her home empty handed. Adrian makes a note to return the basket on his next visit as she waves them off, calling farewell to them as they make their way back down the road. He gives the basket to Hector as they walk, and when they make the fork in the road to the wood he seems to breathe a little easier.

“They seem… like friendly people.” Hector risks a peek into the basket. The heady fragrance of cinnamon and melted butter perfumes the air around them.

Adrian reaches for his hand. He savors the small sound of surprise as he pulls Hector close, curls his fingers under the cusp of his jaw. He kisses him there, in the dappled sunlight as it filters through the trees, to the sound of the breeze rustling through their leaves. The curve of Hector’s smile tastes like the end of summer: lazy and sentimental, bright with joy. Adrian would never be free of it. Never _ dream _ to be.

“Thank you for coming with me today,” he whispers to him. The sound is nearly lost on the wind. _ I love you, _he means.

He can see the small, happy blush as it creeps over the bridge of Hector’s nose, under all of those faint freckles. He feels the heat of it under his skin, hears the stutter of his heart. Hector nods quietly. He absentmindedly straightens the collar of Adrian’s shirt.

“Thank you. For bringing me.”

Adrian presses his lips to his hairline to breathe in the scent of him. Hector feels sacred in his arms. Like home.

A smirk plays at his face. “Now. About that drink.”

Hector laughs. He throws his head back with it, giving Adrian the beautiful line of his throat. “I’d almost forgotten.”

“I say we steal these,” he glances at the pastry-filled basket, “and a bottle of wine away to your room and lock ourselves away for the remainder of the afternoon.”

“And rob Sypha and Trevor of the chance to try them?”

Adrian steals one more kiss. _ “Fuck _ Sypha and Trevor,” he says against Hector’s mouth, and the answering, scandalized gasp is lost to the breeze as he turns to tug Hector down the road after him.

* * *

It is a peculiar feeling, to hold a conversation with someone who is not there. Hector has spent many of his years alone. He is used to talking to himself, or to his animals. This, he thinks, the crystal around his wrist glowing with ghostly blue light, is not the same.

They had been gone less than a week the first time he’d held it to his lips to whisper their names. Both of them, just in case. He had been so afraid they would not respond. That the magic would not work, or that they would refuse the summon. More horrifying was the prospect that there would simply be nobody to hear him. He still fears there will be a day his call goes unanswered. It lurks at the back of his head every time he touches the crystal. Each time it captures the light, throws glimmering refractions through against his skin, it is another reminder that he is _ here _ and they are _ not. _They are God knows where out in a world crawling with danger.

It sweetens the rush of relief that floods him each time he hears them.

“An apple orchard!” Aria’s delight is glaring in her voice, distorted as it is through the distance and the magic that separates them. There is a spectral quality to it, as though she were speaking to him from another plane. For all Hector knows of faerie magic, she very well could be. “Did you hear that, Iri? Alucard took Hector to an apple orchard today.”

“Aye, _ deirfiúr bheag, _I heard.”

“We didn’t go into the actual orchard,” he chuckles. His free hand strokes idly over Cezar’s back. The dog sleeps soundly, curled into his side. He does not stir. “A patient’s family has one on their land. We delivered some medicine to them today.”

“How exciting! Oh, I would expect the walk there was _ gorgeous.” _

His heart thumps in memory of the moment he’d crossed over the threshold of the Belmont estate. Into the woodland road beyond it. Adrian’s patient hands and patient eyes as he’d waited. The feeble courage it had given him.

He gets up from where he lies in his bed. There is an anxious energy fluttering through the passageways between his nerves. He suddenly finds himself unable to keep still for very long. “… It was beautiful,” he says, distracted. “Perhaps you’ll return in time to see the leaves change.”

“... Perhaps even before then.”

A timid joy sputters at the center of his chest like freshly lit kindling, spreading through the rest of him even as he tries to keep it at bay. “Before then?” he asks, hesitant to jump to any conclusions of his own.

“Our search here is quickly drawing to an end.”

“Did you find—”

“No.” Iri’s voice is sharp, guarded in a way he has not heard in a long time. Not since the three of them arrived to this castle. “We have found nothing.”

A weighted silence follows. Their disappointment is palpable, a stale note of bitterness that not even the distance between them can take the edge off. Not for the first time, Hector wonders as to how long they have been at this. How many times has this happened? How many obstacles, how many setbacks on this wild goose chase they lead? The same one that had brought them to _ him. _Who was this person to them, that they would put themselves through this again and again?

Even with the sorrow he knows they must feel, there is a silver lining to be found. The possibility of seeing them again, of their singing once again filling Castlevania’s halls leaves him dizzy with emotion. While Hector laments the circumstances that will bring them back to him, he cannot deny the comfort in knowing their time apart will soon come to a close.

He has never missed anyone like he has missed Aria and Iri. He has Adrian to keep him sane and warm through the night. He has found a friend in Sypha, and a reluctant respect for Trevor. But there had been a yawning void left behind in their wake he has not since been able to fill. He’d tried, with his flowers and his books and his formulas, coming the closest with Adrian in his arms.

There are still nights he wakes from dreams he can’t talk about, and when his feet inevitably wander to their room the door is open but their bed is empty. The pillows still smell of peonies, of Aria’s herbs and Iri’s soap, all of it laced with ancient magic that feels both foreign and familiar. It sings over his skin even now, as though lying dormant to all but the sound of their voices ringing through the crystal. It is mystifying, yet oddly comforting.

“When should we expect you?” he asks quietly, doing his best not to give away his eagerness for the answer. The shard flickers with Iri’s weary hum as she calculates her answer.

“Three weeks, I should think. Maybe four if the travel is hard.”

“Shall I tell Adrian?”

“Adrian is it, now?”

The blood rushes to the very tips of his ears at the careless slip. Hector fidgets with his sleeve. “It isn’t—”

“Yes, Hector. Go ahead and tell him.”

“Be sure to give _ Adrian _ a kiss hello for us. We shall see you both again soon.”

He smiles sadly. “I will.”

_ “Slán go fóill, mo chara.” _

The shard goes dim between his fingers. The soft murmur of magic dissipates with the glow, and when Hector closes his fist around the crystal he is alone, save for the still sleeping pug snoring away on his bed.

* * *

They end up in Adrian’s bedroom, not Hector’s. The privacy of the tower appealed more to the ardor simmering away between them the longer the day dragged on. There was work to be done in the castle: construction and repair projects to continue, flowers in the garden to tend to, curious Speakers to be corralled from the more dangerous floors below. Sypha’s insatiable thirst for knowledge was something to be admired, but at times Adrian feels as though she is intent on turning his blond hair _ grey_.

And so it is well past evening by the time they do manage to steal away to the privacy of his bed, Sonia’s basket and a bottle of wine firmly in hand. Adrian had somehow hidden the spoils of their afternoon outing well enough in the kitchens to escape Trevor’s sharp eye for apple-based sweets. He’d been pleasantly surprised to find them completely untouched. They had decided upon a Chablis, though he had seen the way Hector’s eyes had lingered over the remaining bottles of the Sauternes. Adrian resigns himself to opening one for them another night.

They bother with glasses this time. Sprawled out in front of the hearth, the two of them attempt to make their way through the _ plăcintă cu mere _ with buttery fingers and wine-loosened limbs. A fire roars in the grate, but it offers almost no warmth. A design of magic his father had implemented long ago to alleviate the summer heat. No, the faint flush to Hector’s face has more to do with the bottle they are nearly halfway through, or maybe the fingertips Adrian is slowly inching past the hem of his sleeve. He thoughtfully caresses the skin there, distracted by the firm tendon under the skin, the familiar rush of blood through blue veins.

He says something trivial and unimportant, but it makes Hector laugh and suddenly Adrian is transfixed. Enchanted by the width of his smile, he way his hair hangs in his face as he tilts his head forward. Hector snorts over the rim of his empty glass, undignified and adorable. It is so easy for Adrian to shift his body closer in order to kiss him, savoring each lingering chuckle against his lips. The kiss is flavored with cinnamon and grated apples, all of it soaked in the subtle bite of the wine.

Hector takes the glass from his hand. He sets it down and out of the way as he crawls closer, drapes himself over Adrian until the back of his golden head meets the carpet beneath them. They taste each other in sluggish sweeps, heavy with a certain kind of patience Adrian had not thought himself capable of. It stifles the frenzied need to move, to reach out and _ touch _ the way he normally does. He is held utterly captive, powerless and complacent under the body of the man above him.

A hand lowers to his jaw, fingers gliding over the dip of his throat. Adrian catches the gemstone brilliance of Hector’s eyes as he draws back, glimmering beneath the curled fan of his lashes. Hector paints the vulnerable skin of his neck in fluttering kisses that raise gooseflesh in their wake, the air in the room ghosting over the damp shape of his mouth. It makes him shiver. Hector’s head descends as the kisses continue down over the collar of his shirt, over his clothed belly, down towards the waist of his breeches and suddenly Adrian is afraid to breathe. The scorching lash of a tongue wets the soft skin under his navel as his laces are carefully prised open.

Heated breath rolls over him like storm clouds over glassy seawater and Adrian can’t stand it. Anxiety eats at him as he lifts himself on his elbows to gaze down at Hector. Conflicted.

“Hector—”

“Can I?”

A simple, quiet question. It stuns him. Drains his mouth dry of any sort of protestation. The air shudders its way through his lungs. “Do you want to?” he asks in return. His hands shake in anticipation of an answer.

“I… think so.” Hector traces the flare of his ribcage with a neatly trimmed nail. It _ devastates _ him. “I think I’d like to try.”

Adrian nods stiffly, forcing himself to relax. “… All right.” His fingers flex against the carpet. He licks at the desert of his lips. “All right.”

Hector drags his breeches down over his thighs, far enough so that they lie forgotten and tangled around one of his ankles. Trembling hands skate over Adrian’s legs. He smooths his palm over the bend of his knees, the length of his shins, curling under to follow the curve of his calves. The wanton length of Adrian’s cock sits heavily over his hip. He feels Hector’s eyes on him there. It is hardly the first time they have seen each other this way, but it is still new enough for the both of them to warrant the fleeting pause as he takes in the sight again. Adrian reaches to take Hector’s hand, laces their fingers together against the pale flesh of his thigh.

“Still want to?”

“Yes. But I’d be lying if I said I’m not a bit lost. I don’t…” He tilts his head, sucks a hard breath in between his teeth. “Help me along? Tell me what you like?”

Affection blooms like a rose at the center of his chest. Adrian smiles a little as he takes himself in hand, easy with the familiar weight in his palm. He trails a finger just beneath the crown of the head. He curls the pad of his index over the delicate strand of skin. “Here,” he tells him. “The frenulum. I am particularly sensitive there; you are too.”

He watches as Hector lowers his head further between his legs, and when the plush heat of his tongue ventures forth to taste him, wet as it slides against his finger, Adrian’s heart stutters. The muscles in his abdomen clench, his head falling back to meet the floor. Hector follows it with a lingering kiss. Adrian tries not to choke.

“Like this?” Hector murmurs against him, and it makes him shiver. He does not miss the smug hint of self-satisfaction in his voice.

“Yes,” he answers, smothering a smile into his knuckles. “Like that.”

Blue eyes meet his as Hector continues to bathe the head of his cock in dedicated, experimental licks. Adrian reaches down to take his hand, helps to curl his fingers around his shaft. He squeezes him at the same time as he closes his lips over the crown of him, and Adrian’s answering sigh warps into a high-strung moan.

“That’s good.” His eyelids flutter to a close. In response to his encouragement, Hector pulls back to suck gently at that tender stretch of skin. Adrian hisses. His hips flex in an aborted buck as he strains to keep them still against the mindless urge to chase Hector’s mouth. He has no desire to rush him, to push him past the bounds of his own self-set pace, but the timid way he touches him is so raw, so _ sincere _ that Adrian can feel himself slipping. He bites at his lip, tasting blood against the ground out _ “fuck,” _that leaves him.

The syrupy haze that traps them wavers for a second at the first clumsy graze of molars. Adrian tenses; it does not hurt, but it is enough to momentarily knock the wind from his sails. “Careful,” he chuckles, and Hector hums apologetically.

“Sorry.” It is almost worth it for the contrite kiss he sucks into the tip, tongue delving into the glistening slit of him.

It does not escape him that Hector is a remarkably quick learner. It is one of the things he loves about him; that said, it is doing him no favors in his current situation. Hector takes him down then, as far as he is able, and the flutter of his throat as he gags nearly hurtles Adrian to his end then and there. Hector pulls away, his eyes red-rimmed with reflexive tears. Adrian sinks his nails into the quivering flesh of his belly.

“Are you all right?” he thinks to ask through the need grating against his nerves. Hector nods bashfully against his leg, and Adrian reaches for him. He lovingly wipes away the tears, thumbs sweeping over the rise of his cheekbones. Hector huffs a self-deprecating laugh.

“Got a bit ahead of myself, perhaps.”

“It’s okay. A little slower, then.”

Slower or no, he can tell it will not take much more of this to unravel him. It has been so long since anyone has touched him this way. Before they’d even met each other, before he’d returned to his father’s castle, before Gresit, even. Hector tentatively returns his lips to the flushed length of him and Adrian is already so close, so ready, he cannot think. His hands where they cradle Hector’s face reach to tangle themselves in his hair, and when an eager tongue curls against the flared ridge of him, he tugs just enough to pull—

_ “Don’t.” _

Adrian immediately lets go.

The comfortable bubble of pleasure that had surrounded them, heady and easy with affection and trust, _ shatters _ with one short word. Hector tears himself away and Adrian startles. Dread creeps insidiously up the back of his neck as his stomach sinks. He knows instantly he has made a mistake, an error so grave it has effectively ruined everything. He sits up, reaches for the panicking man in front of him. There are real tears this time, honest with hurt.

“Hector, I didn’t—”

“Don’t touch me.”

Hector dodges his hand. He dips his shoulder as he backs away, scrambling on his heels away from the cage of Adrian’s legs. His empty and forgotten wine glass is knocked over in the process, and it rolls over the carpet to stop next to the fireplace. He rakes his own fingers through the silver waves of his hair as though trying to overwrite the sensation of Adrian’s against his scalp.

“Wait,” Adrian begs him as he climbs to his feet, but Hector does not seem to hear him. His eyes are glazed, distant in a way he hasn’t seen in a long while. Like he is simultaneously trapped in the moment before them and yet hundreds of miles away in the past.

Hector takes one more look at him, lips trembling around his frenzied breathing, and turns away. Adrian watches his back as he goes, watches the door close behind him, hears his bare footsteps echo down the hall. He sits in stunned silence as his mind races to process what has just happened. Whatever it is, it is _ his _ fault, and the gravity that settles around him threatens to split him in two, to crack his bones and bleed him dry. His heart lurches in his chest as the gutted look on Hector’s face flashes before his eyes, again and again.

He has to fix this. He has to fucking _ fix this. _

He dresses himself, pulls his breeches over his legs and laces them as quickly as he is able before bolting from the room, not even bothering to close the door. He follows the direction he knows Hector has gone, follows the frantic drum of his heartbeat, as loud in his ears as the one in his own chest. It leads him down a stairwell and out into a corridor, and when Adrian finally does find him, it is through a door that leads to one of the bridges between two towers.

Hector stands in the middle of the bridge with his back to Adrian, arms wrapped around himself so tightly he can see where his fingers twist into the fabric of his shirt. He is trembling. Even with the wind whipping through their hair, the subdued howl of it loud against the castle’s spires, Hector’s ragged breathing is louder.

“I’m sorry,” he calls to him. Adrian takes a few measured steps in his direction, wary of fracturing whatever trust Hector may still feel for him then. “Hector, I’m so sorry. I had no idea, and I shouldn’t have… I _ should _have been more careful.”

Hector suddenly turns around, gaze boring into Adrian’s. His face is harrowed. He looks ill, as though he can’t decide whether he wants Adrian closer or gone entirely. Silent and steely tears gleam over his face, halfway dried in the wind.

He does not run when Adrian crosses the bridge to him.

“I am sorry,” he says again, because he does not have the words to convey just how much he hates himself for this. For the apprehension in Hector’s eyes, for the way he watches every move he makes. They fall warily to his teeth, and Adrian wants to sob. “I didn’t know, I swear it. I would never have done it if I had. I shouldn’t have either way. I was careless.”

“… I didn’t know, either.”

It _ wounds _ him. The awful realization in Hector’s voice chills him to his very core, so painful to hear he cannot bear it. The thought that there were layers to this agony that Hector himself cannot yet see, cracks in his soul he hadn’t known were there until they split wide open, is anguish. _ Be careful with him, _Iri’s voice echoes to him from the past, and Adrian clenches his jaw against it.

“I didn’t… It just all came down on me at once, without any warning or… God, it was like I was… back _ there, _for just a second, and I couldn’t…”

They are close now, close enough to touch, but the cutting edge to Hector’s voice as he’d snapped, _ don’t touch me, _stills Adrian’s hands. It is not until Hector himself leans forward to press his face at his neck that he gives in. He folds his arms around him, clutches him close against the gale that whirls around them both. So that he can reassure himself he hasn’t just destroyed everything between them with one stupid, selfish gesture.

“I’m sorry, Hector.” Adrian cradles Hector’s face in his hands, once again wipes at his tears, these ones bitter with sorrow. “I’ll never do it again. Do you understand me?”

He nods. Hector licks at his wind-chapped lips. He rests his wet cheek against Adrian’s shoulder, fingers hesitant where they rest at his back as he returns the embrace. Adrian presses a kiss to his temple and tries to ignore the tension sitting high at the back of his throat.

_ Be careful with him, _ he reminds himself. Hector sinks to his knees and he goes with him, loathe to abandon him even in that sense. _ Be careful with him. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter :) Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!!!!!!!!!!!


	23. Part XXIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, I'm getting this chapter out exactly when I intended. That almost never happens.
> 
> By the way, if you like modern AU's I posted one last week! You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616130/chapters/56674912) if you want to read it!
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [ Enthralled- Solace](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632498). It's definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Hector does not sleep much these days.

He wishes he could say that night in Adrian’s bedroom had been of no consequence; a singular, unfortunate event brought about entirely by accident, a misstep born of no true malice on Adrian’s part. A learning experience for them both that he had been able to rally from. He wants nothing more than to continue on as they had, the last dregs of summer coloring their days heady and indulgent. Where his only concern had been the weather, or the formulas he concocts in the laboratory, or whereabouts in the castle Cezar has scampered off to. When he welcomed Adrian’s touch like he’s been starving for it his entire life, whether it be hurried and warmed-through with need or gentle and effortless with cherished familiarity.

The truth of the matter, though, is that his nightmares have not been so severe since he left Styria. They come to him nearly every night now. Spectres of a hell he can hardly bring himself to remember when awake, all too real behind his eyes while he sleeps. Cruelties he’d nearly _ forgotten _ since returning to the castle, dragged back through the bog of his subconscious like mummified corpses. 

Half the time he could not tell what was true memory and what was an embellishment of his dreaming mind. Half the time he can’t even remember what horror it is that wakes him, and those dreams are always worse. He has nothing with which to try and make sense of them but the phantom agony left behind under his skin, curdling his blood, haunting his nerves like ghosts over a battlefield. Hands and nails and teeth and bodies reaching through space and time to rip more pieces from him even as he claws back after them, grasping blindly for all the bits of himself he knows he has already lost.

It was another layer to all of this he had never intended for Adrian to see. The first time he lurches himself awake in Adrian’s bed, slick with cold sweat and trembling so violently he can’t breathe, Hector is convinced he is dying. That he is being killed. He is in a bed that is not his, and there is a man lying next to him, trying to touch him, and when he calls Hector’s name his teeth, his _ fangs _ glare at him in the moonlight.

The fingers that reach for his shoulder burn him through his clothes. Hector tears himself away, movements jerky and frantic with fear, and stumbles out of the bed just in time to reach the wash basin at the vanity. He retches into the beautiful white porcelain, dry, agonizing heaves that leave him nearly too weak to stand. He whimpers against the saliva pooling around his tongue, sluggish and thick in his mouth. He hears his name again. As the world begins to slow around him, the blood roaring in his ears gradually beginning to temper with each violent twist of his stomach, Hector finally remembers to _ breathe. _

Watery blue eyes fall upon the mirror and he can see Adrian at the other side of the room, unearthly behind the shroud of the bed’s silken canopy. His face is an unwelcome combination of worry and trepidation. Like he is debating whether he should come closer or stay very, very still. Hector cannot even decide which it is he would prefer himself.

“Hector,” Adrian says again, and a wave of pure exhaustion rolls over him like a miasma. “Are you all right?”

He groans miserably. Buries his face into the clammy palms of his hands so he doesn’t have to look at that wretched expression on Adrian’s face any longer. He does not answer. He doesn’t know how. No, he is not all right, but he cannot even communicate just how far from all right he feels.

“Do you want to talk—”

_ “Jesus, _no.”

He does not mean to sound so hateful. He knows Adrian is trying to help. But he can fathom no reality where telling Adrian about the depravity that had chased him from his sleep would be of any sort of help. He has just dreamt of being raped in the same bed where Adrian has made love to him. He will never tell him about it. Not for as long as he lives.

When Hector can no longer stand the sight of himself in the mirror, the harrowed cut of his bloodshot and red-rimmed eyes, he turns away. He crosses his arms over his torso, presses the lines of his fingers hard against his ribs until he thinks they might crack. Anything to feel something other than the chill setting into the contours of his skeleton. Frost crystallizing in the crevices between the scars over his hip bones.

Adrian inches closer to him, bit by bit as the seconds pass between them. Grains of sand in an hourglass he’d long ago lost track of.

“Can I touch you?” he asks. Hector hides his face. He wants to bare his teeth at the question, hates the fact that Adrian even has to ask it. Almost resents him for it even. He nods his head all the same.

The choked noise he makes when a hand is pressed to the side of his head is pitiful. Wounded. He balks at the tenderness of the gesture at the same time as he leans into it. Adrian looks stunning like this. He is ethereally beautiful in the curtain of moonlight that streams through the window. All shimmering alabaster and perfect, aurum warmth. The gold of his irises blends seamlessly with the silver of his tears. Hector refuses to meet his eyes. He feels disgusting where their skin meets. The apprehension that lingers in the creases of Adrian’s palm is too much.

Hector turns his cheek.

“I can’t,” he murmurs, and he has no idea what he means by that. He can’t look at Adrian. Can’t be in the same room. Can’t _ think. _“I’m sorry. I just… I can’t.”

He leaves him there in his bedroom. Hector turns his back on Adrian so he doesn’t have to see the hurt in his face as he goes. He doesn’t have the strength to decipher it. He is barely holding himself together as it is, and he does not think he can weather the awful guilt of breaking Adrian’s heart by forcing him to watch this. Hector wanders the castle until the sun rises and he is _ exhausted, _waiting for the bleak balm of daylight before he allows himself to collapse.

He thinks it makes Adrian scared to touch him now. There are no more lighthearted tokens of affection. No fingers to thoughtfully tuck his hair behind his ear. No hand held out in an offer to take his simply for the need to be close. No kisses paid to the freckles over his nose or the shell of his ear. If Adrian does reach for him it is hesitant, as though Hector were a fragile thing he is attempting not to break. He _ hates _it. He would rather Adrian strike him. Violence at the hands of someone he loves was familiar; he knows not what to do with this delicate tenderness.

It is a peculiar feeling. He misses Adrian when he is not there, but when he is near Hector wants nothing more than for him to be gone.

He tries once for the easy intimacy they had known before. Tries to ask with his hands and his body what his mouth cannot force itself to, and it ends in nothing short of a travesty. He loses himself somewhere in the middle and the next thing he knows is the sound of Adrian’s voice as it warps itself around his name, desperately trying to summon him back from wherever his fractured mind has gone. He comes to with wet eyes and his hands lying limply in his lap as it occurs to him he has just lost _ time. _

He runs then, too.

They no longer sleep in the same bed. He decides after the first time that he will not be responsible for keeping Adrian awake at night by subjecting him to the aftermath of his trauma. Adrian listens to him, though he looks ill the first time Hector tells him he’d rather pass the nights in his own room. Alone. He grants him the space he asks for and Hector wishes he wouldn’t. Each time he wakes in the dead of night to find the bed empty beside him feels like another nail in a coffin he doesn’t remember building, and _ that _ is a frightening thought. Cezar is a comfort to him in those instances, but it is hardly the same.

Though they say nothing outright, he can tell Sypha and Trevor notice the difference in his behavior. Sypha is as subtle about her concern as she is about anything else, which is to say not nearly as much as she thinks she is. Whenever they occupy the same space she mothers him. Asks how he slept the night before, whether he has eaten, if he would like to go for a walk. She hovers. It is suffocating. More often than not he simply leaves when he sees a chance to escape, not capable of feeling guilty at just how rude it is. To her credit, she never seems to hold it against him.

He avoids Trevor where he can, and Trevor seems to avoid him in kind. Whenever they do have to be near each other, Trevor offers him nothing more than blessed, hallowed silence. No well-meaning sentiments. No awkward attempts to lighten the mood. Just pure silence. Hector thinks he is more grateful for that than anything else in the castle these days.

He overhears Sypha talking with Adrian one night, in one of the corridors near his library. He had been napping, trying to catch what little sleep he is able during the daylight. He is halfway between sleeping and waking when their voices reach him from the other end of the hall.

“... should be worried?” he hears one of them ask, Sypha’s hushed voice low for only Adrian’s ears.

“I’m not sure. I do worry, though.” He hears a weary sigh. “... don’t think he’s been sleeping.”

“... be possible… he might hurt himself?”

“I don’t…” There is a pause. A very long one, and when Adrian next speaks he sounds very, very sad. “... given me reason to think so. I hope not. _ God, _I can’t…”

He must hear Hector then, must hear the waking heartbeat in his chest or tiny movements he makes as he sits up. They fall quiet, and then there are footsteps echoing toward the stairwell. When they are gone Hector deliberates the answer to Sypha’s question for himself. A boiling film of tears casts his vision in a bleary mess as he plays back the genuine fear in Adrian’s voice.

He doesn’t want to die, he decides, and the realization startles him. He has fought so hard for his life, or whatever is left of it, to give it all up. His roses. Little Cezar. Adrian. Iri and Aria. No, he does not want to die, but he does not see how he can be expected to keep living under this shadow.

That evening he finds Adrian in his father’s study. The room is lit by flickering candle light, mild and sweet-smelling where the window has been opened to let in the dying warmth of summer. Adrian turns his golden head to look at him and the gentle shock in his eyes at seeing that Hector has sought him out aches more than it ought to. He places his quill pen back in its inkwell as he turns to him. He waits.

Hector does his best not to look ashamed as he crosses the room. He doesn’t know what to say; does not trust himself with words, so instead he simply goes to him. His arms seek Adrian out before he even knows what it is he is doing. He pulls him close, tries to convey to him in a gesture what he isn’t brave enough to say out loud. His hair is soft against his cheek as he rests it over the crown of Adrian’s head.

Adrian sobs. It is a deep, toneless sound, almost silent against the curve of his shoulder. There is no hesitance this time, no ginger care not to shatter him in this difficult shift between them. He winds his arms around Hector’s back, folds him in and clings to him like it is the first time he has seen him in weeks. In a way, Hector supposes it is.

“I’m sorry,” Adrian tells him. It cuts at him like a knife. “I’m sorry. I wish I knew what to do to fix this. I wish you could tell me.”

_ I don’t know, _ Hector wants to tell him. He wants to scream it at the top of his lungs, whisper it into the part of Adrian’s hair. Carve it over every scar he’s been left with. _ I don’t know. _

* * *

They pass weeks like that, tiptoeing around this new normal as it smothers them. Hector wakes every night at some odd hour from whatever nightmare that manifests as he sleeps, and he spends the rest of it waiting for the sun to rise. Adrian watches on in disturbed silence, offering whatever tiny consolation Hector will allow him. Sypha and Trevor linger somewhere in the background, sympathetic but impotent in the face of his own inner turmoil.

He’ll not pretend he isn’t counting the days until Iri and Aria return to them from their journey. He spends a month and a half glancing at the windows that look out over the road leading to the castle, hoping to catch a glimpse of a wagon. He suspects Adrian anticipates them as well, though perhaps for different reasons.

He speaks with them a few times as they travel but it is always clipped, kept short by one thing or another. Hector only says enough to ensure them the castle is still waiting for them, listens enough to discern how close they are, how they fare on the road. If they discern the change in his voice, they make no mention of it. They can only provide so much comfort from so far away and there is still the distance between them to contend with. He tries his best to keep his own issues to himself.

It is one early, early morning at the end of that month and a half that he finds himself in the sitting room he and Adrian had claimed as their own. Insomnia had gripped him all throughout the night, and he would consider it a welcome reprieve from the nightmares but the resulting fatigue makes him think he would almost prefer them. Tired blue eyes stare out the window at the Wallachian countryside beyond as he curls into the armchair still flanked with stacks of books he’d meant to read. The sun has not quite made an appearance yet but its arrival is apparent in the greying sky overhead, errant rays of light beginning to break up the darkness. He watches idly as the world wakes outside.

When he sees movement at the clearing of trees, where the road meanders out of the wood and up towards the steps of the castle, he almost thinks he imagines it. There is no wagon like he had expected, like the one he’d seen them leave with, but he knows the two small, cloaked figures immediately. He knows the length of Iri’s wild red braid even from the heights of the castle, knows the pale blonde of Aria’s head just the same. Suddenly the exhaustion in his bones is an afterthought. Hector bolts from the chair and is at the window so quickly his head spins with it, trying to convince his brain that what his eyes show him is real. That it is indeed Iri with her arm around her sister, Aria leaning against her as they slowly make their way down the road—

Iri stumbles for a moment, and the sweep of Aria’s cloak falls to the side. Beneath it, her shirt is stained a deep, horrible red. Her sister trips again, and Hector realizes it is because she is trying to hold her up. That Aria doesn’t seem to be able to walk on her own. Hector holds his breath as he watches them struggle farther down the road for but a moment longer before he turns away from the window.

Weariness means nothing to him now, bare feet quickening down the hallways. His heart roars in his ears, adrenaline propelling him down the stairs. He screams Adrian’s name as he goes knowing full well it would be enough to wake him from anywhere in the castle. He doesn’t bother with shoes. When he reaches the great, hulking doors in the main hall his hands scrabble with the mechanism, cursing to himself until it finally comes unlocked and the doors swing wide to the muggy morning air.

Iri calls out to him, her voice nearly unintelligible in juxtaposed hysteria and relief. Hector sprints towards them. When he finally reaches her, his feet now wet with dew-soaked blades of grass, he nearly slips.

“Take her!” she orders him. She all but flings Aria into his arms before she collapses to the ground, panting as she lands on her hands and knees. Hector has a split second to catch the smaller sister before she falls. The blood that soaks her clothes is cold, and it is everywhere. It covers Iri’s hands where they are planted in the dirt. A line of it marks their path down the road like a macabre trail of breadcrumbs.

Aria’s head lolls in the crook of his arm as he holds her. Her face is peaky and glistening with sweat, and when he says her name she doesn’t respond. “Is she…” His fingers tremble as he touches her cheek. They come away slick with blood.

“No.” Iri sits up on her knees. She pulls away a portion of Aria’s cloak to reveal the splintered shaft of an arrow embedded in her side, just underneath the flare of her ribcage. It has been snapped off close to the skin, most of the wound hastily wrapped in dirty cloth now saturated in scarlet. “Get her inside, and find Alucard. She needs help.”

Hector hauls himself to his feet. He tries not to jostle Aria in his arms, but the motion inspires a weak flutter of her eyes. She gasps. It is a labored, wet sound that catches in his ears like dampened cotton. Iri strains to stand beside him and the pained groan she makes draws his eyes. She holds a hand to the side of her thigh, also wrapped in a hasty makeshift bandage. Hector had assumed the blood to be Aria’s. He was wrong.

“Your leg—”

“Don’t worry about me.” She cuts him off with a sharp jerk of her head. “I will live. She will not.”

He wants to argue but the urgent look in her eyes withers whatever rebuttal he would have offered. He leaves her to limp after him in favor of carrying Aria into the castle.

“Hector, what’s going on?”

Sypha’s voice seems so far away he almost does not hear her. She squints at him in the dim light of the hall, disoriented with sleep and still in her night clothes. His shouting must have woken her, which meant that Trevor couldn’t be far behind. One look at him, at the bleeding girl in his arms, and her eyes go impossibly wide. “Oh, God, is that—”

“Not now.” He barrels past her. There is blood dripping from the tips of Aria’s fingers where her arm dangles. Warm droplets of it stain the floor underneath them, a few landing over the tops of his bare feet. He has to find Adrian. Surely he had heard him before, surely he could _ smell _ the blood all the way from outside. “Where’s Alucard?” he asks her, and his answer comes in the form of a reassuring “Here,” from the top of the stairs. Adrian rushes to meet him, a hand settling over Aria’s throat to feel for the pulse there.

“What happened?” he asks, and Hector simply blinks at him. He shakes his head for lack of an answer and holds Aria closer to his chest.

“There are vampires in your woods.”

Adrian’s golden eyes fixate behind Hector’s back where Iri is arduously climbing her way up towards them. She wobbles on her injured leg for a moment and Sypha reflexively reaches out to steady her, offering her arm as support. She reluctantly takes it.

“They tried to kill us last night. The head of that arrow is made of iron; if it is left in, she will die.”

“Bring her upstairs. This way.”

Hector follows him through the castle, up stairways and down halls into one of the wings devoted to research. Past the lesser used laboratories and libraries and conservatories, until they reach an infirmary he has never seen before. Adrian holds the door open for him. He points to a gurney toward the center of the room before hurrying to a large porcelain wash basin against the wall.

“Leave her there on the table, then come and wash your hands.”

“Adrian—”

“Do as I say.”

The authority in his voice leaves no room for hesitancy. Hector gingerly places Aria on one of the tables. He unfastens the sodden cloak from around her throat and slides it out from underneath her. It falls to the floor with a sick, heavy sound.

He joins Adrian at the basin. He scrubs at his hands the same way he sees Adrian do beside him, lathers himself from his fingernails to his elbows, rinses and repeats for several minutes until he is told to stop. Adrian’s face is grim, the tense line of his jaw left bare where his hair has been pulled from his face.

“What should I do?” he asks him. The tremble in his voice wavers in the sterile air. Adrian does not answer right away. He goes to one of the wooden cabinets and begins to pull out a number of things: phials, syringes, whole trays of gleaming metal instruments. Hector watches him with nervous eyes.

“Take these over there,” he is instructed, and one of the trays is held out to him. There are a few smaller tables near the gurney where Aria lies, and he tries to set out everything he’s been handed. Adrian drops a few more things nearby. Hector thinks he can see his hands shaking as he moves. He takes up a pair of scissors to swiftly cut away Aria’s clothes, as well as the soiled bandages.

The wound underneath is far worse than he could have anticipated. The arrow sits lodged underneath her rib cage, stuck fast into the interstitial cartilage there. Adrian begins the quick work of wiping away the layer of grime and dried blood to reveal the carnage underneath. The skin around the broken shaft is mottled through with dark, inky veins, a spidery nebula of grey and black that emanates outwards from the center of it all.

“What is that?” Hector asks him. “Could the arrow have been poisoned?”

“Pure iron; it’s as good as. If she still had her wings, she’d already be dead.”

He reaches for a glass syringe filled with something clear, almost like water. Hector watches him tap it twice, watches any lingering air bubbles float to the top. His fingers feel along the bend of Aria’s arm until he finds a vein and then the gleaming needle sinks through her skin. The depression of the plunger floods the vein with whatever is inside.

Aria twitches on the table. Her brow draws low over her shut eyes. Her hand grips feebly at the lip of the table.

“This is a sedative. Hold her still.”

Hector takes her by the wrist to gently guide it back at her side. Her eyes open then, and when she fixes him with foggy green, he is not even sure she can see him. She opens her mouth to try and speak but all that comes out is a dry wheeze. Her ribs stutter grotesquely around the arrow.

She is trying to say his name, he realizes, and the floor nearly drops out from under him.

“Can you give her more?”

“It takes a moment to work.” He passes Hector a wad of gauze. “Press that to the wound; we need to staunch the bleeding in the meanwhile.”

Hector is not a stranger to bodies on tables. He’s done his best work elbow-deep in gore and ichor both human and not, has had years to accustom himself to the sight of organs and viscera and bones. But this is different. Not one of the specimens he’d ever worked with had been brought to him still _ alive_. None of them bled. None of them breathed. None of them could still feel pain. At least, not until he was done with them.

As he looks down at Aria’s bare, dying body he finds himself paralyzed by the sight. There is so much blood. It pools on the gurney beneath her, covers his hands even now that he’s washed them. Far more blood than he’d ever have thought someone so small capable of losing.

“Hector.”

He tears his eyes from the patchwork quilt of pale skin and glittering red to find Adrian staring at him.

“We don’t have time for this. Do you understand? If you can’t do it then I need you to leave and find Sypha for me; I’m going to need help, and I can’t rely on you if you’re going to hesitate.”

Something grips him then. Something desperate and defensive that flares to life at the thought of Sypha here in his place, here at Aria’s side where he should be. “I can,” he insists. “I’ll be fine. Just tell me what to do.”

“You’re sure?”

_ “Yes.” _

As if to prove what he says is the truth, Hector wads the gauze where the blood wells the worst. He tries to apply the necessary pressure but Aria flinches underneath his hand. He can feel her small fingers scrabbling around his wrist, her nails scraping lamely at his knuckles. He tries to ignore it. Adrian’s breath leaves him in a frustrated hiss.

“I don’t know how she’s still moving, the sedative should be taking effect by now.”

“How do you know it’s enough?”

“Hector, I’ve given her enough to topple a _ horse. _ Anymore would either kill her or not make a difference.”

Whether it should or should not be working differently hardly matters to Hector in that moment. He simply knows that it isn’t. Aria’s frail attempts to pull him away from her wound are as distracting as they are heartbreaking. She is still bleeding away between his fingers, still trying to weave her fractured breaths around his name. Hector grits his teeth and bears down harder against the blood, packing the gauze over it.

Aria _ shrieks. _

The sound shakes the floor of the castle underneath them. Glass shatters all around them, cabinet doors and flasks too delicate to withstand it bursting into pieces over the floors and countertops. The thicker panes in the windows rattle, but thankfully hold. Hector’s hands fly instinctively to his ears, red and sticky where they catch in his hair. Aria continues to hold on to him. Her grip tightens in a frightening display of strength, squeezing so hard around the bones in his wrist he worries for a moment she may break his arm. When he looks to her face, her eyes are no longer green. They flicker milky white and unseeing as she continues to screech at them, twisting as much as the arrow pinning her still will allow.

When she finally stops, finally falls limply back against the gurney, Hector is convinced that she is dead. That what he has just heard was an agonized death knell. His ears ring in the unearthly silence that follows. Adrian leans over her to check for her pulse, measure her respiration, and Hector stares stupidly at her lax hand against the table.

Adrian’s lips are moving but he cannot hear him.

“What?” he asks, and the ringing gradually begins to fade.

“... is working now. She’s asleep.”

His shoulders slump in relief. Hector returns to the gauze around the arrow. He presses down in an experimental effort, watching Aria’s face for any sign of movement. He finds nothing. She lies eerily still, save for the shallow rise and fall of her small chest.

Things move very quickly after that. With the bleeding now more or less under control, Adrian begins assessing the wound. “It’s missed her lung, which is good,” he mutters, either to Hector or himself, he cannot be sure. “That should make this a little more straightforward.” Hector watches with morbid fascination as he grabs the arrow by its splintered shaft and slowly begins to twist, as though he were testing it.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking to see if it is lodged in the bone.” He slowly rotates it, moving it by only a fraction, and at the distinct lack of give his expression pinches into something inscrutable. He looks dissatisfied with what he finds. Adrian presses his lips tightly together for several tense moments as he thinks. “It’s not budging. I need to make an incision. It will have to be pulled out.”

“Shouldn’t you push it straight through?”

“I can’t; it’s impacted one of her ribs.”

“So what do we do?”

“I need more room with which to work.”

Adrian reaches for one of the scalpels on the tray. He makes a short, deep slice below the base of the arrow, carefully cutting away at layers of skin and muscle. Hector continues to dab away any blood that wells as a result. When it’s done there is an incision large enough to slip two of his fingers into. The scalpel is discarded in favor of a length of metal wire, nearly as long as his arm with a wide loop at one end. Adrian threads it over the shaft of the arrow and begins to feed it through, down past the skin and into Aria’s flesh. Hector fights back the urge to squirm.

The smell of scorched flesh flares in his nostrils. Like cooked meat. Hector’s eyes water. “What is that?”

“The iron has seared through some of the tissue. It’s burning her from the inside.”

Adrian sinks the wire in until it meets resistance, likely where the arrowhead has found bone. He fiddles with a mechanism at the other end until he hears a wet _ snick _ from somewhere inside Aria’s chest. The fingers of one hand splay wide over her sternum in an effort to hold her steady as he begins to pull.

Hector can hear it when the arrow comes loose. There is visceral sound to it, a faint crunch halfway between hollow and brittle as the iron is pulled from the rib. It makes his hair stand on end. Adrian’s face is an impassive mask of concentration as he cautiously extracts the wood, coaxing it through the labyrinth of shredded flesh until it finally comes free. The arrowhead, dingy and grey and pure iron, is coated in a blackened crust of burnt and curdled blood. It is dropped down to one of the trays with a gorey clatter.

“Is that all?” he asks Adrian hopefully, to which he receives a weary shake of his head.

“Not yet. The burnt tissue needs to be cut away or it will continue to die.”

A speculum is wedged into the incision and Adrian bids him to hold it open as he works. Silence settles over them; piece by piece, the dark bits of ruined flesh are cut away from the inside of Aria’s body. Adrian drops them all into a steel pan, glistening shards of charred ash. By the time he is done Hector’s hands are beginning to shake. The adrenaline from earlier is all but dissipated and his muscles are left wanting in the aftermath. He is relieved in more ways than one when Adrian starts to sew neat little sutures where the gaping incision had once been.

Sixteen stitches. That is all it takes to close up any evidence of the arrow that had very nearly been the end of the sleeping girl on the table. Hector stares at the angry red line of them, trying to wrap his mind around how that much damage could be completely sewn away so quickly. Adrian ties them off with practiced ease compared to the frantic urgency with which he had tried to put her back together. When he is finished, Hector brushes a curious, barely there thumb over the track of knots. The skin around the sutures is still webbed with dark veins, choked through with reaction to the iron, but it has begun to fade. Healthy bruises begin to take their place, purple and blue and pink where there had been black. The only traces of red left on her are haphazard smears of dried crimson that they simply hadn’t had the time to wipe away.

He can _ feel _ the arrowhead where it sits at the other side of the gurney. It has a frequency all its own, an insidious hum that sets his teeth on edge. The metal tools that surround them almost seem to amplify it. It festers like a weeping lesion on his psyche and Hector is nearly overcome with the instinct to fling it away, to toss it from the highest tower in the castle to ensure it lands far and away from them.

Adrian sighs from across the surgery table. It tears his attention from the offending arrow, and when he looks to his face it is worn. Drained.

“What now?” Hector asks him, because surely this is enough. Surely the worst has passed, surely she should live now.

“She needs to rest.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.” He raises his arm to wipe away an errant bead of sweat, fingertips stained scarlet with faerie blood. “It might take all day for the anesthetic to wear off. And the rib is undoubtedly broken. She’ll be bed-bound for several days.”

_ But she will live, _he wants to add. An affirmation. The more he repeats it to himself, the more real it starts to sound.

Adrian coats the stitches in a thick ointment to keep them clean before they dress the wound. They wrap her in fresh, clean bandages. Swathe them around her ribcage and over her shoulder. A corset of woven cotton. He says something about when they’ll need to be changed but Hector hardly hears him. He stares at the bloodless hue of Aria’s complexion against the pure white of the cloth and the two are so similar he can’t bear to look anymore.

He tries to forget the mangled, scarred flesh at her back.

When Adrian moves to lift her it snaps him out of it. He lifts her as if she weighs nothing at all, and the memory of her tiny body in his own arms is still fresh enough to inspire a wave of nausea. Hector swallows it down.

“Careful,” Adrian warns him as he turns away, tilting his head down. The space around them is littered in broken glass, the errant shards glittering like diamonds against the septic white tile. Hector dodges them as he follows, bare feet quiet where he steps.

Three hours they had spent in that room. Three hours they had spent to save her life. He had been expecting to find Iri at the door or sitting in the hallway but she is not there. There is no sign of her as they walk, and she is nowhere to be found in the bedroom adjacent to his own. As Adrian lowers Aria’s sleeping form to the bed, Hector cannot decide if that is a good or a bad sign.

“When she wakes she’ll need something for the pain. But for now the sedative should be enough to keep her comfortable.”

Hector nods, unsure what else to offer in response. He is too transfixed by how frail she looks against the bed clothes. Unnaturally still, unnaturally pale where her head lolls against the pillow. _ Comfortable, _he thinks, as the sight of her blood on his hands burns itself at his mind’s eye.

He crosses the room to look through the wardrobe against the wall.

“What are you doing?”

“Help me,” he requests of Adrian. He digs until he happens upon what he’s looking for, fine white linen clutched in his fingers. “I can’t stand looking… just help me, please.”

Adrian says nothing. Together they manage to pull her into one of the nightgowns she’d left behind. Hector knows it had undoubtedly been Adrian’s at some point when he was a child, as there hadn’t been any other clothes in the castle to fit her. He breathes a little more easily once she’s dressed and the bandages are benignly hidden away under the soft fabric.

They tuck her firmly beneath the coverlet to keep her warm. Hector’s hand’s shake as the reserves of his adrenaline finally run dry and he is left delicate in the aftermath. Suddenly the effort of holding himself up to stand is a goliath endeavor. His eyelids feel heavy. It reminds him then that he has had hardly any sleep that night, that he has eaten nothing since the day before. He feels stretched thin and fit to snap.

Adrian’s fingers settle on his shoulder. He kisses him softly there, a tender pressure through his shirt. Hector’s eyes flutter with the tenderness of it.

“Thank you,” Adrian says to him and he sighs. “Thank you for helping me.”

He doesn’t want to be thanked. He never wants to have to do this again, not for as long as he lives.

“Where’s Iri?” he asks.

“I don’t know, but I need to find her. The last thing we need is a disturbed, bleeding faerie and a Belmont wandering Dracula’s castle unattended.”

Hector’s eyes widen. “Trevor wouldn’t—”

“No, he wouldn’t. But she doesn’t know that.”

“Should I come with you?”

“No. Stay. Sit with her.” Adrian moves to drag one of the chairs near the hearth over to the bedside. “She needs you more than I do right now.”

It feels as though he should argue as he sits, but the way his bones scream at him convinces him to keep quiet. He draws his knees up, folds them in close to his body. Adrian leaves the door cracked after himself as he leaves, and in his wake he leaves a fragile and tentative silence Hector knows not what to do with. It is only broken by the timid breaths Aria takes as she sleeps.

His tired eyes sweep out over the woods outside the window, and Hector fights back the urge to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I spent some time researching how to treat arrow wounds lol. It was actually pretty interesting. Please please please leave me a comment, they really do mean everything to me!!!!!!!!!!!


	24. Part XXIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter was actually supposed to be longer but I felt like it was getting little too long-winded. I hope you guys like this one regardless though!
> 
> By the way, if you like modern AU's I posted one last week! You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616130/chapters/56674912) if you want to read it!
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading! If you haven't already, please check out her fic [ Enthralled- Solace](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632498). It's definitely worth the read!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

The midmorning sunlight nearly stuns Adrian when he finally steps out into the hall. Now that the frenzy of urgency has subsided, the weight of what has transpired since daybreak begins to take its toll. His hands tremble at his sides as he navigates the corridor to his father’s study. He takes up his bag, the black leather cool against his clammy palms.

He finds Sypha in the kitchen.

“Where is she?”

Her head rises from where it had been drooping against her shoulder at the sound of his voice. She blinks tiredly at him. “Downstairs, I think.” Sypha rubs at her eyes. “I tried to get her to let me look at the leg but…”

“I expected as much.”

Adrian drops his bag. He bends over the sink to wash his hands once more. Sypha falls silent behind him beneath the sound of the running water. As Adrian lathers his hands, rinses them, lathers them again, he can tell there is more she wants to say. He tries to scrub the rust red remainders away from the whorls of his fingertips.

“The little girl,” Sypha says quietly, after he switches the tap off. “Will she be all right?”

He dries his hands on a clean kitchen towel. It comes away stained in pale pink patches. “She will recover. Though it will take some time.”

“Good.” She looks relieved. Her hands fidget on the table. “Could I see her?”

“Not just yet. She’s still asleep.” She nods, and Adrian feels a tiny bit guilty. “I left her with Hector.”

“How is he holding up?”

“He’s shaken. Badly. This morning has been… taxing.” Adrian closes his eyes and takes a long, deep breath. The haunted, lost look on Hector’s face flickers behind his lids, as he’d stood over Aria’s sleeping form with the nightgown clutched in his red, red hands. The desperate waver in his voice as he’d asked for his help echoes in his ears. He tries not to dwell on it. “Where’s Trevor?”

“He went to check the surrounding woods. There was a trail left behind. Of blood. I think he went to follow it.”

“Oh.”

“I tried to clean up the entryway so that—Iri, is it? So she wouldn’t have to see it all—”

“Thank you, Sypha.” He gives her a sliver of a smile. She does not quite return it. “You’ve done more than enough. You should go back to bed.” He knows she had more than likely been up until the odd hours of early morning reading, as she is wont to do, and that the commotion the sunrise had brought with it undoubtedly woke her out of a dead sleep.

“You’ll come to get me if I’m needed? If anything happens?”

He nods, though he desperately hopes the need to disturb her won’t surface. Sypha kisses his cheek as she passes, her bare feet shuffling doggedly over the kitchen floor. Adrian hopes she does manage to get a little more sleep. He has a feeling that she’ll need it very soon.

It does not escape him, as he descends the newly scrubbed stairs in the great hall, that Sypha had to know the value of what she spent the better part of her morning washing away. She is superbly educated in knowledge both practical and arcane. A rarity in Wallachia, faerie blood was invaluable to the right people. There were vampires, magicians, and hunters that would have cut their way across continents for a single drop. A thimbleful would have been enough to feed and clothe her people for years. And yet here he was, the front of his shirt and his rolled sleeves drenched in priceless red, wishing he could simply return it from whence it spilled. The acrid taint of Aria’s burnt flesh still lingers in his nostrils. Her screaming rings in his ears. He imagines the stuttered pulse of her ribs around a broken whisper of Hector’s name.

No amount of gold could be worth any of it. He knows Sypha had assuredly felt the same.

He follows a staggered trail of half-dried crimson down into the wine cellar. Not that long ago the place had still been littered with broken bottles and near infested with cobwebs. The splintered glass had since been cleared away, and while the spiders had been permitted to stay the evidence of them was kept in check. The electric lights hum as they illuminate the space, dimmed as they are to preserve the bottles housed in the racks and shelves.

Adrian finds Iri tucked into a corner, an opened bottle clutched tightly in her hand. She sits sprawled out against the wall with her injured leg unbent on the floor. She hardly acknowledges him as he walks towards her. There is a glazed, faraway look to her eyes that he almost recognizes. It is not dissimilar to the one he has seen in Hector’s after a nightmare.

“Your father may have been a mad, genocidal bastard,” she says, still not looking at him, “but he had decent taste in whiskey.”

“May I have the bottle, please?”

That earns him her eyes. She stares at him for a few moments as though considering whether or not to comply, then stretches her arm towards him. He takes the proffered bottle, swirls its contents in the colored glass. A little less than half empty. Adrian sets it down on a nearby shelf. He kneels beside her and opens his bag.

“Will she live?”

He hears the tears in her voice before he sees them in her lashes. They slide down her face, cutting a clear path through the blood and dirt spattered there.

“She’s resting,” he tells her. A sob echoes suddenly through the cavernous cellar. It is loud in the dusty silence. The normally stiff line of her shoulders shudders as her hands come up to scrub at her face. He allows her a moment’s respite with her tears, face hidden so he cannot see.

“How bad was it?”

Adrian chooses not to mince his words. “She’s lost a lot of blood; you probably gathered as much. The arrow broke at least one rib, possibly more. I’ve had to cut away a lot of damaged tissue from her thoracic cavity.”

“Will she be all right?”

“She’ll recover eventually, yes.” Iri pulls her hands away, wipes at her dirty cheeks. Fixes him with her bloodshot eyes. “It will take a while, several weeks at the least, but it will heal.”

She nods. “Okay.” Her voice sounds thick in her mouth. With whiskey or tears, he’s not sure. Most likely both.

“I need to see your leg.”

Iri huffs. She begrudgingly moves to give him room at her side. Adrian gingerly begins to unwind the dirty, improvised bandage from her thigh. It looks like it may at one point have been a blouse. The wound underneath is partially obscured by her clothes but even so he can already smell the familiar twinge of scorched flesh. What he can see is wet and red, bordered pink in some places and burnt black in others.

“What happened?”

“They ambushed us in the woods. We were close enough to the castle so we decided to ride through the night rather than camp. There were two of them; scouts. They wore no colors but the fletchings on the arrow were black and white. Styrian colors.”

He could have guessed as much. Adrian’s mouth settles into a grim line as he begins to tear away the ruined leg of her breeches. He delicately touches at the border of blistered flesh that rings the gash. “The sword was iron?”

“Yes. They meant to kill us.”

“Not capture?”

“Clearly not.”

That surprises him. Faeries even without their wings were worth far more alive than dead. A living source of blood, to be tapped at will. He knew Carmilla was pragmatic, but she was also vindictive. No doubt their taking Hector was a slight she refused to see go unpunished. Either she had run out of patience, or she simply didn’t care. They were an obstacle between her and her stolen forgemaster. Just as he was.

He is going to have to speak with Trevor. They will need a plan.

“Did you manage to kill them?”

“One. I slit him from throat to belly after he shot Aria.” She sniffs. “I took the other one’s arm. He gave me this in return.”

Adrian pulls a phial from his bag. He washes the wound in clear, numbing medicine. Iri bites back a barely audible hiss. The burns are painful but not nearly as severe as Aria’s had been. The same nebulous, black veins span the length of the wound beneath Iri’s skin. They start to fade as soon as he flushes it.

“Does it hurt?” he asks her.

“No. It is only cold.”

“Good.”

He finds a pair of forceps and surgical scissors and begins to painstakingly snip away at the ruined flesh. Thankfully this time there is far less of it.

“Where is Hector?” she asks him. Her head is turned away towards the other direction.

“He’s distraught. He offered to come with me; I told him to stay with Aria. To sit with her while she sleeps.”

“He did not look well, Alucard.”

His hands still. He sighs delicately through his nose. This is not a conversation he wants to have while he works, so he stays silent. Iri waits. Once the last of the singed skin has been cut free from her leg, he flushes it again and reaches for a needle and thread. “There was… an incident. If you want more details you’ll have to talk to him, but it hurt him. I hurt him.”

“Alucard—”

“I never meant to,” he says adamantly. “It was stupid, and impulsive, but I wasn’t thinking and it frightened him so, _ so _ badly. I don’t think he can even stand to be in the same room as me.” Adrian can feel the anxiety mounting behind his heart as he shakily stitches up the cleaned, trimmed wound. When he’s done, he throws his tools back into his bag. “Those will need to come out in a few days’ time. Try and keep them clean.”

“Thank you.”

Guilt throttles him so thoroughly then it feels as though he might suffocate. Iri stares at him as he struggles for what to say next. “Please talk to him,” he begs her. “I don’t know what to do. I have no idea how to help him, and whenever I try it only seems to worsen things. He doesn’t sleep, and he barely eats. He wants to be alone all the time, and it feels like I’m _ abandoning _ him—”

“Adrian, stop.”

He is rambling, he realizes. Rambling about his failings as a lover to a half-drunk, injured faerie whose sister nearly died just hours ago. “I apologize.” Adrian’s face grows hot with shame. The stress from performing impromptu surgery on a child finally settles atop the agony of watching Hector slowly slip away from him for the past few weeks, and it all seems to come crashing down around his ears. “That was selfish of me. Your leg—”

“Is feeling much better now, thank you.”

Adrian swallows down a sudden surge of self-hatred. He takes a roll of clean bandages. Wraps them around the width of her thigh. The wound disappears behind the soft swathe of cotton that he carefully ties into place. The breeches are, unfortunately, unsalvageable, but the leg will heal. Adrian puts all of his things away, back into his black bag, and slumps against the shelving behind them. “I can get you something for the pain.”

“The pain is nothing. I will be fine.” Iri turns her body to look at him, up and into his face. Her vast, green eyes bore into his. “I would hear of your pain, and of Hector’s. What has happened between you?”

“You asked me to be careful with him. I tried to be, but… I made a mistake. A stupid one. I had no idea it would affect him the way it did, and I suspect he was even more shocked by it than I was. I am angry with myself for it, and though I apologized, swore it would never happen again, it still feels like I’ve lost him for it.”

“How have things changed?”

Adrian’s brow furrows. His mouth feels dry. “He has nightmares almost every night. And he’s distant. There are days when he can’t stand for me to touch him, but when he does let me it feels like he resents me for it. Like there is something I’m supposed to see, some piece to it all I’m missing.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I… have tried.” The memory of Hector’s face that night in his bedroom, dark and exhausted in the reflection of the mirror, comes to him then. He’d asked if he’d wanted to talk then and the horrified twist of his mouth, the steely, pained shimmer in his eyes as he’d hissed, _ Jesus, no, _still stings. “He doesn’t tell me anything. He won’t. Or can’t.”

“It is difficult,” she tells him, and he accepts that. He’s seen it, knows full well the agony Hector is so inept at hiding every single time he is faced with the prospect of revealing everything he survived in Styria. Adrian doesn’t push him for it. Doubts he could stomach it himself. “You must understand this: Hector knows so little of love. He feels it; he expresses it. He craves it from people who are dear to him. But he was not raised with it. He has been alone for most of his life, and so he has learned to contend with everything that way. Alone. He is unused to people who love him offering their hand when he struggles. It can be jarring, even scary.”

“I don’t mean to scare him.” His voice sounds soft in the lofty air of the cellar. “I only wish he could tell me because I don’t know how to help. I don’t know how to _ fix _ any of this.”

“You can’t.”

Iri’s response winds him the same as it would had she just struck him across the face. Adrian turns his head to face her, his hair whipping about his shoulders. He gapes at her. Pale fingers clench in the stained legs of his trousers. “Can’t I?”

“No,” Iri answers, and the calm, green pools of her eyes render him helpless and impotent amidst the wave of futile desperation that overtakes him. “This is not a simple broken bone or a scraped knee. You cannot heal it with bandages and salves and tonics. It is not your place to mend him.”

“So what am I to do then?” he murmurs. “Sit back and watch his suffering from afar? Wait for the pain to slowly eat away at him until there is nothing left? How can I do that?”

“What you _ can _ do is remind him he is no longer alone.” She shifts to move her leg, wincing as it jostles her stitches. “I can tell you from experience that these things are not linear. There will be setbacks, and relapses, and it will hurt both of you. It is ugly work, and while Hector cannot do it alone _ you _ also cannot do it for him. All you can do is be a balm when the wound grows too tender to bear.”

“And what if it never closes?”

“It may very well not.” He does not like that answer. The set of his jaw is tense as his teeth clench. Iri reaches up to touch his face. The gentleness of her hand catches him off guard. “If you love him, you love all of him. You love him with his pain, just as you do with his compassion, his stubbornness, and his courage. Not despite it. Do you love him, Adrian?”

“Yes,” he tells her, because there is no other possible way for him to answer that question.

“Then you will be what he needs, and he does not need a savior. He needs you.” A tear slips free of his lashes, hot and potent over his cheek. It meets the line of Iri’s palm under his jaw leaving her skin wet where she touches him. Her small thumb wipes away the glistening trail it leaves behind. Her brow furrows as she looks at him, as though she has found something in his face she has never noticed before. “Sometimes I forget; you are so very, _ very _ young,” she whispers to him. “The both of you. _ Leanaí.” _

Adrian blinks at her. Iri is a slight woman, hardly even matches his shoulder in height when standing, and yet as he ponders the centuries of life she must have over him he feels very small. In his short life, Adrian has seen his mother murdered, been forced to stake his father through the heart, and now may very well lose the man he loves to a monstrous woman he thought he had escaped. “It does not feel that way,” he says to her, and she smiles wistfully at him.

“It never does.”

Iri tucks his hair back behind his ear. Adrian wipes at his eyes to dry them, a little ashamed at how easily she’d seen his tears. “We should go back upstairs,” he mutters, reaching to close his bag. When he stands he reaches out a hand for her, pulling her up as she takes it. He watches carefully as she wobbles on her feet, offering his arm so she might steady herself.

“I would like to see my sister, please. And I would like to rest.”

Adrian helps her up the stairs. The half-empty bottle of whiskey is left behind on the shelf, unstoppered and no longer needed.

* * *

A low rumble of distant thunder wakes him. Hector stirs in his chair, eyes not quite willing to open yet for the fatigue that still gums them closed. His neck aches at this angle where it is bent against the backrest of the chair. The room still smells of flowers, now grotesquely masked by the sterile odor of medicine and caustic, stale blood. It burns in his nose.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep but the exhaustion of yet another sleepless night combined with the high strung stakes of that morning had been too much for him to overpower. He sat up with Aria as long as he could, watched the shallow rise and fall of her bandaged chest to reassure himself she would not slip away the second he looked away. It had started to rain at some point in time. The sound of it pattering softly against the windows combined with the dulcet gust of her labored breaths had almost been a lullaby. He’d succumbed quickly to the weight of his eyelids, his legs curled underneath his body in the chair.

A sound echoes against the carpeted floors, so hushed he almost misses it. Hector’s brows furrow when he hears it. His eyes finally open, blinking against the grey, rainy daylight as it shyly streams through the glass panes. He takes a quick breath as he comes to, blearily drags his palm over his tired face as he looks about the room.

The source of the sound becomes apparent in an instant. Trevor Belmont stands at the other side of Aria’s bed, cloak and hair both damp as though he has just come in from the rain.

Hector startles in his chair. His feet hit the floor, hands clutching at the armrests so tightly the wood creaks under his nails. The sudden jolt of fear winds him. His voice is mostly air when he speaks.

“Jesus Christ, Trevor.”

“Sorry,” Trevor says quietly. More quietly than Hector would ever thought him capable of. “I wasn’t trying to wake you.”

Hector follows the trajectory of his gaze to Aria between them. He is struck by the panicked notion that she is no longer breathing, that the life had vacated her tiny body as he’d carelessly dozed her last precious minutes away. He finds the pulse point at her neck and when he feels the fragile and subdued thrum against his fingertips he sighs, long and deep. His shoulders slump as the muzzy rush of relief damns him. Aria continues to breathe beneath the coverlet, the dip and swell of her ribcage almost imperceptible under its plush weight.

He glares at Trevor. Suddenly, the reality of the situation bears down on them both and Hector’s hackles rise as it settles into the corners of the room. Something swells in his breast, something protective and indignant that compels him to lean over Aria in what he hopes is an admonition.

Trevor Belmont is a veritable bear of a man. If he wanted, he could break Hector into pieces like he were naught but kindling for a fire and Hector would be hopeless to stop him. That does nothing to assuage the prickly edge that cuts along his spine at the other man’s sheer proximity, too close and too soon after he’d nearly been forced to watch her die. Hector thinks of the silver chained morning star at his belt, of what he’s seen in the depths of his family’s hold. _ He wouldn’t, _Adrian had said, and while Hector believed him then, still believes him in the rational depths of his mind, he’ll not take his chances. He may be no match for the last surviving member of the Belmont clan but he won’t hesitate to put himself between him and the sleeping girl under the blankets.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, shocked by the coldness of his own voice. Trevor stares impassively back. He shrugs something off of his shoulder to drop it carefully on the bed.

It is Aria’s satchel. Hector reaches for it and drags it over, the familiar leather smooth against his palm. She hadn’t had it with her when Iri had carried her to the castle. “Where did you get this?”

“I followed the trail and found their wagon in the woods.” Hector’s throat tightens at the mention of the trail, knowing Trevor means the blood. “It’s full of herbs, flowers, pebbles, and some other weird shit, so I assumed it belongs to them. Those as well.”

He nods his head towards the wall where Hector can see the white wood of Aria’s crystal-headed staff beside the gleaming faerie glass bow he knows to be Iri’s. The bowstring has been snapped and the matching quiver is empty. Hector idly opens the satchel. The familiar, pungent aroma of healing herbs that he’d always associated with Aria wafts towards him from inside. Chamomile and echinacea and yarrow, mixed with something distinctly floral. Sweetpea blossoms. He finds a small handful of them wilted and all but crushed to bits. A few shiny river stones litter the bottom of the bag. He takes one. It shimmers in the weak light as he smooths his thumb over its polished exterior.

It hums faintly in his hand.

“Was there anything else?” he asks.

“Some camping supplies strewn about, a couple of ruined bed rolls. The horse must have been cut loose in the struggle and run off. Might be able to find it later if we’re lucky.” Trevor rakes a hand through his sodden hair. It falls back into his face when he’s done. “Not much else worth hauling back.”

“Thank you,” Hector says, even though none of these things are his. He pockets the stone. Trevor watches him do it.

The other man lowers his eyes back to Aria’s pale face. The tip of one delicately pointed ear lies tellingly against the white blonde of her hair. “Will she be all right?”

“Alucard seems to think so. In time.” Trevor takes a step closer and Hector narrows his eyes. “Don’t,” he murmurs warningly.

“I’m not going to touch her, Hector,” he assures him. His hands come up in a show of deference, though it does little to appease the unrest fluttering amidst his guts. Trevor’s mouth settles into a grim line. Hector sees the muscle in his jaw flex as it clenches.

“What is it?”

“Sypha said she was a little girl. I thought she just mentioned it because faeries are usually small. I wasn’t expecting her to actually be a little girl.”

Hector has half a mind to insist that she is, in fact, much older than she looks, but he stops himself. Three hundred years may seem an incomprehensibly long time to be a child, but there was no other way to explain it. Aria is a child. Despite the magic, the practiced composure of her manners and the darkness so deftly hidden behind her years, she is still so obviously a young girl. A child who still reads storybooks written in dragon tongue, weaves flower chains for her friends, and takes far too much sugar in her tea. A child who was nearly murdered by monsters looking for him.

Hector is no stranger to guilt, especially not these days, but never before has it tasted so _ bitter. _

“I did think she would be smaller,” Trevor mutters, “though I guess they lose the ability to change their size without the wings. Amongst other things. The ones I’ve seen, at least, were small.”

“How small?”

“My father once brought one back to the estate when I was a boy; some poachers were trying to sell him on the black market. The little bastard could fit in the palm of your hand. They can grow and shrink at will. I think there’s some hierarchy to it, or they prefer to be small when confronted with humans. Helps them feel safer, maybe. More agile.”

“Exactly how much do you know of faeries?”

Trevor shrugs. “A bit more than most, I suppose, though not a lot. There aren’t any in this country, and my family’s specialization lies…. Elsewhere.” He crosses his arms. A sour expression blankets his face, mouth twisting distastefully. “In my experience, they bite. A lot.”

Hector gives him a skeptical glance. In all the time he’s known Aria and Iri he’s never seen them bite anyone. He wonders how Trevor would have even come to know that. Wonders what became of the faerie that had ended up in the Belmont mansion however many years ago.

“Where is Alucard?”

Trevor’s voice pulls him from the mire of his thoughts. “He went to find her sister.” Anxiety flares keenly under his skin, like fever. “You really shouldn’t be in here, Trevor.” There is no longer any real heat behind the words, but he does mean them. He shudders to think what might happen should Iri open the door to find a strange man, and a Belmont of all people, in her little sister’s bedroom while she sleeps.

“I need to speak with him.”

“Later. I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”

He does not allow Trevor the chance to respond, simply moves to direct him to the door. Thankfully, he goes without much more of a protest. Hector ushers him into the hall, prepared to close the door behind him and return to his waiting.

He had not heard the voices in the hallway and judging by the subtle surprise on his face, neither had Trevor. Hector rounds the frame of the door as he means to see Trevor on his way and turns his head to find two pairs of eyes on them, one green and one gold. Adrian and Iri stare back at them. Silence falls over the castle, foreboding as it mingles with the tranquil rain from outside.

Iri takes one look at Trevor Belmont and Hector watches her face change in morbid awe. In one instant she had been calmly speaking to Adrian, leaning heavily on him as she limped, and in the next any and all traces of good humor vanish from her. There is a split second, the proverbial calm before the storm, where she locks eyes with Trevor. Her head tilts minutely and Hector sees the twitch to her slack mouth, the unhinged shrinking of her pupils in their doubled irises as they take in the crest on his tunic, morning star in his belt, and then the scar that stretches over his brow and down his cheek.

Trevor abruptly thrusts a hand into Hector’s chest and pushes him out of the way. He is sent sprawling back into the room, and not a moment too soon.

Everything happens so inhumanly fast his eyes and his brain cannot quite follow. Two separate blurs of movement whirl past him so quickly they might as well have been one entity, one a familiar and ghostly red he knows to be Adrian and the other a fluttering blue cloud of what looks to be hundreds of tiny butterflies. He’s unsure which one reaches Trevor first but the next thing he knows the hunter is knocked clean to the floor at the other side of the hall. Iri looms over him like a specter and he has never been more certain of anything than he is that she means to kill him.

Hector hardly _ recognizes _ her. She looks like a feral thing, a creature out of a child’s nightmare. Her eyes have grown impossibly wide in her skull, bulging and swirling with hatred as she glares down at Trevor. Her lips have pulled back from her teeth in a chilling grimace. The familiar cusp of her smile has gone jagged and lethal and each tooth ends in a sharp point. The only thing keeping her from sinking them into Trevor’s throat is the arm Adrian has preemptively braced around her neck to hold her back. His hand fists into the base of her braid as though he were scruffing a cat.

An awful, eerie creaking sound fills his ears. It is not unlike that of a hideous insect, or something vaguely reptilian. Hector’s blood crawls to a stop in his veins as he realizes it is coming from Iri’s throat.

He closes the door. He’s unsure why, but the sudden concern that the struggle might wake Aria compels him to. Hector scrambles to his knees to tug at the doorknob until the mechanism clicks shut, bracing himself with his back against the aged wood. He holds his breath, stricken as he watches the scene unfold before him.

“Lucky, lucky Belmont,” she drawls in that terrible, sickly sweet voice. It almost makes him want to cover his ears. “How lucky you are that Dracula’s son is here to save the life you seem so eager to forfeit, else you would be little more than a stain on this castle’s walls by now.”

Trevor laughs drily. “Is that so?”

“If you have so much as lain a hand on her, I promise you will die screaming. I shall cut out your heart and use it for _ target practice_. I will make a chalice of your thick, mortal skull, and I will drink from it as I set every inch of this fetid shithole of a country ablaze.”

“I haven’t touched your sister, _ pixie.” _

Iri snaps her teeth at him. Her fingers snare themselves in the front of Trevor’s tunic and she pulls him that much closer towards her snarling face. “Call me or my sister pixie again, boy, and I shall relieve you of your tongue.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Iri takes a short, bitten breath. It is only then that Hector sees the gleaming dagger in Trevor’s fist, the tip of it positioned neatly between her ribs. He presses it dangerously into the thin wool of her jacket.

“Stop it!”

Hector lurches forward on his knees to crawl towards them. He would wrench the blade from Trevor’s hands himself if he had to. Adrian throws him a withering glare.

“Stay where you are,” he hisses, and it shocks him into stillness.

“Silver?” Iri giggles madly. “Did you not study your bestiary, little Belmont? Silver and blessings and holy water will do you no favors here.”

“No,” Trevor growls, and he presses the blade closer into her side, “but a punctured lung might do the trick.”

“Aye, you had better hope so.”

“Alucard, get her off of me or you’ll soon have another patient on your hands.”

“That’s enough!”

With no small amount of preternatural strength, Adrian sweeps his arm back and flings Iri away from Trevor. She tumbles across the floor to land near Hector’s feet and the force seems to disorientate her for a moment. Hector yanks her towards him, drags her into the cage of his arms and fully prepares to hold her back again. She goes blessedly slack against him and when she turns her head towards him he finds he once again recognizes her face. Gone is the fiendish mask and all that is left behind are the same pretty, pointed features he feels like he’s known for years.

“See?” Trevor quips at Hector. “Told you they bite.”

“Control yourself!” Adrian spits at her. Iri glares at him stonily. “If you rip those stitches loose, I’ll not be the one to set them right.”

“If he so much as steps foot in this corridor again—”

“Go and see to your sister. I shall speak to you later, should you feel less inclined to behave like an animal.” He turns to Trevor next, reaches for the wrinkled front of his tunic. “Get up.” He hauls the hunter to his feet and shoves him in the other direction.

“Adrian—”

“Not now.” Adrian cuts Hector off with a dismissive gesture. He dogs Trevor as they disappear down the hall, arguing heatedly as they go. Iri watches them like a hawk, trembling furiously against Hector’s chest. Not until they are far out of sight does she make to move.

“Help me up, please,” she requests of him, her voice gone soft now that it’s only the two of them. Sad. Hector stands, stretching out a hand for her to take. All the fight seems to have left her, and as she teeters on her one good leg she grasps for his fingers. Holds them tightly in hers.

“Are you all right?” he asks her, and the nod she gives him in answer is not half so convincing as she means it to be.

Aria is, amazingly, still asleep even despite the pandemonium that had raged just outside her door, no doubt still under the influence of the tranquilizer from earlier. She has shifted a little further on her uninjured side. Hector wonders if the pain is beginning to leak through the dull shield of unconsciousness. He will have to ask Adrian after what to give her when she wakes, though he is unsure when that will be. It might take the whole day, he’d said.

Iri sits gingerly at the side of the bed and leans over to study Aria’s face. Her expression is still blank with sleep. It is almost peaceful. One of her fingers traces idly at the lax line of one of her brows, drifting up into her hairline to tenderly brush the pale bangs behind a tapered ear. Her eyes glisten.

“She was so excited to see you again.” The line of her throat fluctuates beneath the high collar of her jacket as she swallows thickly. “We both were. Alucard too, or Adrian. Whatever he is called these days.”

Oh, how that makes his heart ache. Like a full-body bruise, echoed in the hollows of his chest as it throbs. Guilt chokes him again, lodges at the back of his throat until there is no room left for his voice. He looks on dumbly as she presses a small kiss to Aria’s forehead.

If there were vampires in the woods that surrounded the castle, he knows they are there for him. For Carmilla’s foolish runaway forgemaster who had once thought if he could run far enough, run towards the last place he knew to be safe, then she would never be able to touch him again. He realizes now that he had been wrong.

“Thank you,” she says to him, “for saving her.”

He feels sick to his stomach.

It feels like a lifetime ago that he had been a different man, and yet the strife he had bought himself then with his ignorance, his blind prejudice and misplaced morals, _ still _ threatens to drag him under. He had sold himself to Carmilla the very second she’d whispered into his ear and he’d leant in to listen, and she would see to it the debt of her price was collected. A price Aria had very nearly paid for him with her life. He had almost robbed Iri of her sister and she means to _ thank _ him.

He worries idly at the shard of crystal around his wrist to find it still crusted over with dried blood. He drops it suddenly as though it’s burned him.

He draws clear, warm water into the empty wash basin near the fire and retakes his place in the chair at Aria’s bedside. He waits for Iri to wash, to put on fresh and unbloodied clothes. When she cautiously crawls beneath the coverlet beside Aria her hair is loose from its braid. The untamed curls of it tumble over the pillow under her head. Like a wildfire in the middle of a snow field.

Hector holds his breath until she too is asleep.

* * *

“Have you lost your fucking mind?”

The walls of the stairwell almost seem too close with the way they trap his words and throw them back towards him. Adrian jerks Trevor past the archway and crowds him towards the steps, blocking the path back into the hallway. Trevor tears his arm out of his grip, tries to rub some of the feeling back into his wrist. He stares impassively back at him, steely blue challenging simmering gold.

“Spare me the lecture, Alucard.”

“It looks as though you’re in need of one!” He bares his teeth in anger. “Barging into a wounded child’s bedroom while she sleeps, unannounced, unaccompanied, and carrying _ weapons. _Hunters’ weapons. You haven’t just crossed lines, Trevor, you’ve trampled them!”

Trevor glares. He takes a long breath, fills his chest with it. It leaves him in a clipped sigh. “I know that in hindsight, it probably wasn’t—”

“Oh, do shut up. Hindsight wouldn’t have saved you had I not been there to keep her sister from ripping your idiot head off your shoulders.”

“I can handle myself!”

“Obviously not! If that were the case you never would have been there in the first place!” Adrian pointedly crosses his arms. “What even possessed you? On what grounds did any of that seem like a good idea?”

“I found the wagon about three miles down the road. Their things were still in it, so I brought them back.”

“And you couldn’t just leave them at the door?”

“I _knocked,”_ Trevor says. “There was no answer.”

“Which you clearly took to be an invitation.”

“I wanted to make sure everything was all right.”

Adrian scoffs. “Yes, how considerate of you.” Trevor’s eyes widen. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said the shadow over his face could have passed as hurt.

“Do you honestly think I would have hurt that girl, Alucard? Or done anything else untoward?”

A beat of tense silence passes between them. The raised line of Adrian’s shoulders drops by a fraction. “Of course not,” he relents, “but that is not the point.”

“I never touched her. Ask Hector if you don’t believe me; he was there the whole time.”

“I believe you, Trevor. There’s no need to drag Hector back into all of this.” He pinches at the bridge of his nose, digs his fingers into his closed eyes. “This has been a difficult morning for all of us.”

“How many were there?”

The question brings with it a rolling wave of exhaustion. “Two scouts. Styrian. One is dead, but the other managed to escape. He should be missing an arm.”

Trevor nods. “I saw the ashes near the wagon.”

“Should we go searching right away?”

“We should have some time yet. He’ll have found a place to hole up during the daylight hours, and I doubt he’ll be going anywhere anytime soon with a wound like that. Most likely he’ll wait until nightfall, find some animals to feed on to gain back some strength, and then go back into hiding.”

“Do you think there could be anymore?”

“I didn’t see any signs of a large group. If they’re scouts then there wouldn’t be that many of them. We know they’re here now, though. If there were anymore the smart thing for them to do would be to leave.” Trevor’s face turns grave. “Which leads me to my next point.”

Adrian can tell by the tone of his voice that he is not going to like this. “What’s that?”

“The other reason I was there was to look for you. We need to consider asking Hector a few questions. About his time in Styria.”

“No.” He adamantly shakes his head, refusing to entertain that line of thought any further. “Absolutely not.”

“Alucard, if he knows anything about what Carmilla could be planning, who she might trust to send after him—”

“Did you not hear me?” Adrian spits at him. “I said no. This discussion is over.”

“Do you think she’s going to stop at this? That after the first failed attempt, her men will run back to her with their tails between their legs and leave the two of you to blissfully while away the years together here in your father’s castle?”

_ “My _castle,” he insists, and Trevor rolls his eyes.

“Dracula’s castle. Who’s to say next time she won’t bring a fucking army with her?” He tilts his head. “Who’s to say she’ll be the only one?”

“I can’t. You saw what happened the last time.”

“I know. That was my fault; I pushed him. Which is why I think it would be best if _ you _ were the one to approach him about it. It’s either going to be you or me, and I obviously don’t have the tact for it.”

Dread sinks like a stone into the pit of his stomach. Adrian stares at the floor, completely unable to meet Trevor’s eyes. Hector was already in such a bad place that something like this very well might be nothing short of disastrous. He was not eager to go delving for whatever awful truth beneath all of the scars he’s seen on Hector’s skin. He doesn’t want to know. The damage left behind was enough.

Trevor drops his voice. “We don’t need all the gruesome details. Just names, statistics. Anything he might remember.”

“And if he doesn’t remember anything?” Adrian’s voice burns in his throat. “What if I force him to relive all of it and it amounts to nothing? What then?”

“I don’t have an answer for you.” He shrugs. “But would it not be worth a shot?”

_ No, _ Adrian thinks. If Trevor were the one to wake in the middle of the night to Hector’s screaming, to the tears and the panic that drove him from his bed night after night, he would never have asked.

A thought occurs to him.

“What if we found the scout?” he asks. Trevor’s brow quirks at that. “We could bring him in alive. Question him.”

“There’s no guarantee he’d tell us the truth, much less cooperate.”

“Then we _ make _ him cooperate.”

“You mean torture him?”

“If it comes to that.” Adrian bites at his lip. “Father had ways of compelling his enemies to talk. Not all of them were so brutal. Many of them were, but not all.”

He can tell Trevor doesn’t like his plan. A hunter through and through, he’d much rather just stake the bastard and be done with it. He acquiesces though, even if he does scowl all the while. “... All right. If that’s what you want to do. When?”

“I need to see Aria through the night. She’s stable, for the most part, but I should stay close if anything changes.”

“Sypha and I can keep watch over the castle tonight. Then tomorrow night we go hunting.”

He nods. “Yes,” he mutters, turning to head back down the hall. He leaves Trevor in the stairwell. “Tomorrow night, we go hunting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!!! Please leave a comment and let me know what you guys think :)
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _Leanaí:_ babies


	25. Part XXV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!!!!! Please leave me a comment with any feedback you'd like to share :) I LOVE reading them, and while I'm usually too shy to reply they still mean the absolute world to me. I'm grateful for each and every one.
> 
> By the way, if you like modern AU's I have one in progress! You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616130/chapters/56674912) if you want to read it!
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

He hadn’t exactly arrived to Castlevania with a bag of his own.

Aria’d had her satchel, and the two sisters would alternate in hauling their camping equipment. Hector had _nothing. _He hadn’t even had shoes. He’d left the Styrian castle with nothing but the rags on his back and the scars he’d collected, and therefore had nothing to carry.

He did not plan on taking much. Some warmer clothes he could wear, now that summer had all but left them to make room for autumn. He could take a short sword from the armory, some food from the kitchen that would last him a while on the road. He had a little money, just a few coins he’d accumulated here and there over the past few months. It wasn’t much but it might buy him a night’s stay at an inn should the weather turn drastic. He’d gone farther with less in his pockets.

He tries not to dwell too long on everything he will have to leave behind, but as he rifles through his belongings, few in number but precious in sentiment, it’s impossible not to catalogue them. His favorite pair of gardening gloves; the ones Trevor had given to him for his birthday. All of his books, those borrowed from the castle libraries and those Sypha had brought back from the village. Dried and preserved chains of flowers Aria had hung on the walls of his room. Flowers for him to remember her by, she had said, in case they didn’t return in time to see the last of them in the garden. An ugly pair of stockings Iri had tried to knit for him before she gave up knitting altogether, so misshapen and flimsy he couldn’t even wear them.

He happens upon the blue vest with its cream colored sash he’d made for himself in the spring, before Sypha and Trevor had even arrived. He’d been so proud then to have something entirely his own again, after living on Adrian’s charity and the girls’ kindness. They’d sat in the bottom drawer of his wardrobe ever since that disastrous first meeting, and as he closes them away again Hector regrets that he’d never gotten a chance to wear them a second time.

The crystalline shard hangs heavy against his hand. Hector slips it free of his wrist. He leaves it on his pillow. Should the magic in it hum to life after he’d gone, he cannot say for certain he’d be able to deny Aria or Iri’s voice begging him to come back. Or Adrian’s. Certainly not Adrian’s.

The meager assortment of things he’s gathered are scattered over top his bed. Hector tries to organize which way he should pack them, and his gaze falls upon the leather bag Adrian had given him that day they’d visited the family in the orchard. Sonia’s family.

He hopes Adrian does not come to hate him for this.

Hector empties it of its contents: the mortar and pestle, solutions housed in clear glass bottles, compounds he’d jarred and labelled himself. There is a small book of Lisa Tepes’ handwritten notes; formulas. Weeks he had spent pouring over her elegant handwriting, trying to recreate her results. He places it near the crystal. He’ll not take one of the last few things Adrian has left of his mother’s. He will not break his heart more than he has to.

They will be safe, he assures himself. Once he is gone there will be no reason for Carmilla to seek out the castle or anyone inside it. He’ll let himself be seen in the nearby villages, keep to the main roads. The bounty on his head would make him an easy target, and with any luck word that he has left Castlevania should reach Styria quickly enough. The sooner Carmilla directed her resources towards chasing him down, the sooner it would turn her attention away from Adrian.

The checklist he thinks his way through is short. He has all the clothes he is willing to take. Some of the reagents could be sold to nearby apothecaries, should he find himself in need of more money. His mind wanders to Cezar, only briefly, and he tries not to think about leaving him behind for a second time. Cezar will be taken care of after he’s gone. He knows that. All that is left to do is dress himself, get the sword from the armory, try and make it to the kitchen without being caught—

“What are you doing?”

Hector freezes.

Since fleeing from Styria, he has always made a point in leaving doors open when he can. The inherent fear of again being locked away still haunts him. It’s a bone deep claustrophobia, rooted in the months he’d spent chained away from the sun. Adrian had sworn he would never be a prisoner here, and Hector believes him, but he wishes it were so simple to explain to the still bruised parts of his heart. He sleeps with his bedroom door swung wide, passes hours studying in the libraries the same way, and if Adrian didn’t insist the laboratories remain sealed at all times for safety purposes he would keep those open as well. Anything to remind himself he is no longer hopelessly trapped.

That said, as he stares into Adrian’s stricken face, his golden eyes wide in disbelief and his lips parted in a tiny gape, he wishes he had shut the damn door.

“Hector,” Adrian breathes, voice ghastly quiet despite the devastation laced through the syllables of Hector’s name. His gaze lowers to the bed, where Hector’s hands are filled with his things, in the midst of stuffing them into the bag Adrian had given him all those weeks ago. “What are you doing?” he asks again, though both of them are fully aware it is entirely obvious what he is doing.

Hector says nothing. There is nothing he  _ can _ say. He stares back at him, helplessly caught red-handed in the middle of his plan, rash and impulsive as it is. He drops the clothes he had been holding. Drops the bag too. Adrian’s eyes follow each half-hearted movement as though looking for any further explanation in the absence of words.

All the air leaves Adrian’s lungs in an anguished gust. Hector can hear it clear across the room. It’s heavy with encroaching tears. The silence between them is suffocating, but Hector doesn’t have the courage to break it. Adrian does it for him.

“Fine,” he hisses, like it burns to say it. “Fine. If this is what you want then I won’t stop you.” It sounds decidedly not fine.

“Adrian—”

“Here.” He crosses the distance between the doorway and the bed to take up the woolen shirt Hector has just dropped. He rips open the mouth of the bag to stuff it inside. “I’ll even help you.” There are tears glistening in his eyes, and Hector simply stands there, impotent at the sight of them. “What else? Do you need money? A horse? Shall I pack you a picnic to take with you?”

“Adrian, don’t.”

“I haven’t any wagons but I’m certain neither Iri nor Aria would mind if you took theirs. Of course, you’ll have to follow the path into the woods to find it. There may still be blood on it, too—”

“Stop it,” he begs, because he hadn’t wanted this. The betrayal in Adrian’s voice is too much to stomach. Hector grabs at his wrist to pull him away and Adrian rips his hand back. He throws the bag to the ground, all of the items he’d packed inside spilling out over the floor. Hector flinches.

“How could you?” His teeth are bared as he says it, glinting weakly in the rainy light. “How could you be so fucking  _ selfish?” _

Hector blinks at him.

Selfish?

He opens his mouth to reply, but Adrian doesn’t give him the chance.

“Where would you even go?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. He hadn’t really thought that far. He could return to Rhodes, he supposed. He might be safe there for a time, provided Carmilla’s people didn’t find him on the road. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Did you even stop to think of what would happen if you left? If Carmilla were to find you? Believe me, Hector, if she gets her hands on you she’ll not let you go again. You won’t escape a second time.” A tear shakes loose from his lashes, leaving a shining path down his cheek. “And I would… I would rend the world  _ asunder _ to bring you home, but I am only one man.”

“Let her find me,” Hector spits. “I don’t care if she does.”

“You should! She may not kill you, Hector, but you’ll wish she had! Carmilla is vindictive, she’s tactical, and she is cruel!”

“There is no one else in this castle who knows how cruel she is better than I do!” Anger swells through his nerves until his hands shake with it. The rational part of his brain reminds him that Iri and Aria are still asleep in the room next to them, and while he doubts Aria could be woken by their shouting he is less confident Iri would not come to investigate. “Keep your voice down,” he urges Adrian, and Adrian scoffs.

“Let them hear. Let them find out just how fucking  _ insane _ this plan of yours is.” To Hector’s relief, his tone does soften when he next speaks. “What am I supposed to tell Aria when she wakes up to find you gone? After I have spent an entire morning with my hands inside her chest to try and keep her alive? What am I to tell her sister? Or Sypha and Trevor for that matter?” His voice cracks. “What of the people that care about you?”

Hector feels his own eyes grow wet, and the sight of Adrian suddenly turns blurry. “That is precisely why,” he answers, and Adrian actually sobs at that. “I won’t sit here, hiding away in some tower while she carves a path through all of you to get to me.” Adrian shakes his head, refusing to accept that for an answer. 

“If you mean to tell me you would throw yourself to the wolves for our sakes then I won’t hear it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t!” he says. “I dare you to explain it to me.”

A deep and powerful ache sets in at the base of his chest. “It was Aria that found me first, in Styria.” Adrian falls gravely quiet, the same way he always does whenever Hector alludes to anything regarding Carmilla or her castle. As though he were just as frightened of hearing it all as Hector was to tell it. “I had been... beaten. So badly I lost consciousness. When I awoke she just. Slipped into the room. She told me she would take me with her, and promised to come back for me. I thought I hallucinated the whole thing.”

“And you would choose to leave her behind? Just like that?”

“She nearly  _ died,  _ Adrian. She was almost killed, because she helped to steal me away from that hellhole.” Gruesome images flash before his mind’s eye. Aria spread limply on the gurney that morning, red and white and fading. Iri in her place, followed by Sypha and Trevor. Adrian’s eyes staring up at him without seeing, dull and lifeless.  _ His  _ voice sputtering around mangled lungs and ribs to utter a macabre rendition of Hector’s name. It makes him ill. “I would rather spend the rest of my days under Carmilla’s thumb than ever see any of you hurt on my behalf.”

“Leaving won’t change that. Look around you. Do you have any idea where you are?” He crosses the room to the window, sweeps his hand out towards the sprawling wilderness below them. “This is  _ Dracula’s  _ castle, the most powerful vampire the world has ever known, and he was my father. I murdered him. Carmilla won’t be the only one to seek out this place, and you won’t be the only reason.”

“Then there is no reason I should put you in any more danger!”

“Danger!” Adrian laughs. “I know of danger, Hector. Sypha, Trevor, and I were not under the illusion stopping my father would not come with consequences. We’ve accepted that, chosen to live our lives under the threat of it. Aria and Iri did the same when they took you from that castle, and if you don’t believe either of them would take a  _ thousand _ more arrows to keep you safe then you are a fool.”

“No, but they shouldn’t have to!”

“And you shouldn’t have to run!” More tears. Adrian’s throat sounds thick with them. “You shouldn’t have to wake up screaming at night, or live your life terrified someone is going to shut you away again! You shouldn’t have been made to suffer through whatever it is you can’t tell me about!”

“Stop it,” he says again, trying to bite down on the tremble of his lower lip. “Please.”

“My mother shouldn’t have been burned at the stake, and my father shouldn’t have tried to commit genocide in her name. Trevor’s family should never have burned to death in a fire set by a mob. Sypha and her people shouldn’t have to defend themselves from those they try to help. Iri and Aria shouldn’t have had their wings cut away. None of it is right, none of it is fair, and running won’t change any of it.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Let us  _ help  _ you. You’re not alone anymore. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

He reaches out to take Hector’s hand, and Hector shuts his eyes against it. There it is again. The hesitant, corrupt gentleness that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. The same tentative touch that makes him feel wrong, like he is a skittish animal and Adrian is trying not to scare him away. “I hate it when you touch me like that,” he bites at him, and it’s Adrian’s turn to look puzzled.

“Like what?” he asks.

“Like you’re expecting me to shatter should you touch me like I were a real person again.”

“I…” He seems stunned, speechless.

“I’m not made of glass, Adrian.”

“I know that.” He nods. “I know you’re not, but I’m so frightened of hurting you.”

“You couldn’t,” Hector tells him, and it terrifies him to know just how true that is.

“I have hurt you.”

“That wasn’t your fault.” He knows whose fault it is, and none of the blame is Adrian’s. It had never been Adrian’s claws in his hair, holding him down. Dragging him back into the dark. He had simply been caught in the middle of it all.

Clammy fingers slip underneath the sleeve of his wrinkled and worn shirt. Adrian’s thumb strokes lightly over the throb of the veins in his wrist, blue and warm and frantic below his skin. “How should I touch you then?”

His other hand curls around the curve of his cheekbone, and Hector has to bite his tongue against a strangled sob. Oh, but he is weak to this. To the warmth of Adrian’s palm soaking into his exhausted face, all the comfort he has craved these past several weeks but not known how to ask for. “Like this,” he warbles pitifully, pleading for him to understand just what it is he means.

Adrian nods. He rests his forehead to Hector’s, steps fully into his space until they share their breath. “All right,” he says.

He should have shut that fucking door. The very second Adrian’s skin meets his he knows all of his rashly made plans have been dashed over the castle’s flagstones, like so much scattered debris. Adrian is right. He  _ has _ been alone for so long, practically his entire life, only ever with himself to depend upon. He knows not what to do with another pair of hands ready to catch him every time he stumbles. It would be easier to run.

He is swiftly learning that while love complicates these things, it leaves him that much better for it.

Hector splays his fingers over the solid plane of Adrian’s chest. He can feel his heart beneath his palm, a steady and constant rhythm he swears beats in time with his own. It grounds him. It undoes him. He’d missed this. Hector presses his lips to Adrian’s and feels as though he has finally come home after a lifetime away.

Adrian makes a sad, desperate sound and Hector does his best to swallow it down. Pale fingers clutch at the back of his shirt until they tangle there almost as if they were reluctant to let him go, lest he truly slip away for good. Hector tangles his own through Adrian’s hair, cradles gently at the back of his skull to keep him near.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers against Hector’s mouth. “God, but I’ve missed you, Hector.”

It is like a levee finally giving way, after months of wear by way of a vicious, crashing surf. Adrian surges against him and Hector pulls him in. He crushes him close, herds him against the wall behind them until there is no space left between them. He hears Adrian whimper, a heart wrenching noise that he tries to kiss away. It feels as though he has been slowly dying of thirst, parched as he deprived himself of all the love this man is capable of, and Adrian is a wellspring. Glimmering and beautiful and soothing. Hector drinks until he thinks he could happily drown. His tongue drags over the lethal cusp of Adrian’s teeth, and when blood wells in his mouth he hardly cares. Adrian moans sharply when he tastes it, potent iron mixed with tears. 

He slides his hand up the back of Adrian’s shirt, burning to touch him after so long without, and the tiny, broken sigh that ghosts the shell of his ear sends a shiver through his bones. Adrian snakes his arms around Hector’s neck as he pants, and when his knees buckle, when he begins to sink down towards the ground Hector goes with him without ever letting him go. He crowds him close, knees bent underneath Adrian’s thighs so he effectively sits in Hector’s lap. He smears his lips down the breathtaking length of Adrian’s throat, planting languid, dedicated kisses all over him.

It’s not the same heat they’ve known before, when night fell around the castle and they fell into each other just as sanguinely. It’s similar, but not the same. The need that courses through his blood is different, less like fever and more like a bruise. The warmth of Adrian’s body is a balm, his pulse a hymn beneath Hector’s lips. He buries his nose into the tear-soaked side of his neck and breathes him in until he feels as though he might burst at the seams. The familiar rush of his scent all but blinds him; freshly fallen snow, clean salt and sterile soap all braided around something deeper, something more poignant.

Home.

“Don’t leave me,” Adrian begs him, lips damp at his temple as they tremble around the words. “Please. I can’t lose you too.”

“I won’t,” Hector promises, and he means it. He couldn’t leave him, not now. Not after everything. He’d been a fool to try. He shakes his head, smothers his damp eyes into the searing heat of Adrian’s skin. “I’m sorry.”

* * *

Adrian helps him to put his things away and back where they belong in his bedroom. His clothes are again folded and hung away in his wardrobe, his bag once again filled with the tools and jars scattered about his bedding. There is not much to set right, but it feels as though it takes ages. Like each belonging he and Hector tidy into place is a brick to a house that had nearly been torn down. His face is a portrait of so many things: the shadows of exhaustion blooming like bruises over his skin, but also the heavy cast of misplaced guilt. There is shame in the downcast angle of his eyes. Adrian thinks he’s had a lifetime’s worth of the shame that threatens to swallow Hector up in his darkest moments. If he could, he’d kiss him clean of it all. If only it were that easy.

“When did you last eat?” he asks him, even though he can most likely guess at the answer if the shaking in Hector’s hands is anything to go by.

“I can’t remember.” Hector shakes his head, trying to come up with an answer. “Yesterday afternoon, maybe. I wasn’t… I don’t think I was feeling well.”

It is a loaded statement, Adrian knows. Whether Hector realizes just how weighted down and with how many different truths it is, he cannot be sure. Hector has not been well in a great many weeks, and he would be damned if he sat back and watched any longer. He had tried to offer space in the form of his absence, and it is so obvious now that was not what Hector needed, even if he did not know how to ask. Adrian would do the asking for him if that is what it takes.

“Come to the kitchen with me?” he offers, and to his relief Hector does not protest the hand he stretches out towards him. He slides their palms together, fingers linked. This time, Adrian grabs for him and  _ clings,  _ the way he’s been so afraid to do for fear of pushing too far, asking too much. He knows better now.

If his grip is the tiniest bit too tight, Hector says nothing. The way he squeezes him back is enough.

They are both too tired, too weary for anything elaborate. Adrian makes do with what is the most readily available. He rewarms a loaf of soft bread in the oven, slathers thick cut slices with butter and honey until his fingers are sticky with it. There is a portion of cold bacon leftover from whatever breakfast Sypha had put together for herself earlier that morning. A kettle is filled with water for tea, and instead of the usual black tea Adrian brews them a mild chamomile.

He adds the honey and lemon without Hector even needing to ask.

It is a simple meal, but a sorely needed one. They eat in bleak, drained silence. Adrian watches carefully as Hector picks at his food, taking note of each paltry bite chased down by sips of cooling tea. It isn’t much, but it’s the most he has seen him eat in one sitting in a very long time. That, at least, is some form of a comfort. Either his appetite is finally starting to emerge after weeks of dormancy, or he is too tired to argue each time Adrian nudges his plate towards him.

There is something weighing on Hector’s mind, more so than what seems the most obvious. He stares distantly out of the window, fingers clasped around the delicate china. Adrian places a hand on his knee to see if it will ground him enough to share. Hector blinks at the contact. He finds Adrian’s eyes through the steam that pours from his cup.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Hector brings the cup to his mouth, but does not drink. The pristine rim of it, bordered with hand-painted violets, presses into his lower lip. “I can’t help thinking,” he murmurs softly, as though trying not to disturb the tepid calm that they have fallen into, “that I should prepare something for Iri. For Aria too, should she wake up.”

It’s touching, almost frustratingly so, that even now, as Hector fights to stay awake sitting at the kitchen table, he is convinced there is more he can do. Adrian chooses his words carefully, unwilling to snuff out the beautiful compassion that even after everything still glows through the cracks the world has put in this man. “There will be plenty of time tomorrow,” he says mildly and Hector nods, because that is true, but Adrian can tell it is not the response he was hoping for.

“I don’t know when it was they last ate.”

He doesn’t have the heart to remind him that Iri is more than capable of preparing food for herself, or that even should the anesthetic wear off soon Aria will likely be in too much pain to keep anything down for a while. Adrian simply tilts his head, strokes his thumb over the curve of Hector’s kneecap. “I think Iri will take more comfort in knowing you are looking after yourself. And please don’t try to convince me you are fine. I know you haven’t slept.”

“I did sleep,” he insists, and Adrian smiles wryly.

“Half an hour in a chair at Aria’s bedside hardly counts.”

The scene abruptly reminds him of similar conversations he’d heard between his mother and father as a child, at this very table. His mother would come home after days of attending patients in neighboring towns, weak and tired and still unwilling to rest while there was work to be done. His father would take her hand in his, small and fragile in his own huge, clawed fingers. He would kiss her greying face and remind her to rest.  _ You cannot serve from an empty vessel, my love,  _ he would say to her, and that always seemed to convince her.

Adrian knows that Hector is so far from empty, but he has served enough.

Hector puts up no more resistance, which is fortunate because Adrian will hear no more on the matter. He fills Hector’s cup one more time before clearing their dishes. It is empty again by the time he’s done.

Once they’ve eaten, Adrian decides a bath is in order. Dull and dried spatters of Aria’s blood still paint their clothes, their skin, their hair in places, and he knows Hector will rest easier once it has been washed away. He leads him down to the baths in the lower levels. Hector prefers the showers, he knows, as they’re typically quicker and closer to his bedroom, but Adrian hopes a longer soak will help to soothe his nerves. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to one himself.

The baths are carved into a gleaming room of white and gold marble, more like small pools rather than tubs. He could liken it to the Roman style, but slightly more intimate in scale. They’d thankfully been mostly untouched in the fighting, as Adrian couldn’t fathom just where he’d come up with enough marble to repair it, though the rapid teleportation of the castle had shattered nearly every bottle that had once been stored there. He’s since managed to scrape together enough soaps, oils, and salts to build somewhat of a small collection, though it pales in comparison to the shelves of colorful glass that used to span the walls.

Adrian runs the hot water to fill the smaller of the two pools. He finds the chunk of fig leaf soap that Hector prefers, as well as his own shampoo and a small phial of lavender bath oil he hopes will be relaxing. By the time he gathers them all Hector has already stripped of his clothes and sunken waist-deep into the water. He wraps his arms around himself, standing in the middle of the pool as though he were waiting for something. Adrian leaves the bottles at the edge of the bath and disrobes in order to follow.

Despite the hot water and the steam that blankets the room, Hector’s skin is covered in gooseflesh. He shivers. It’s the exhaustion, Adrian knows, his body attempting to communicate that it is fast approaching its limits. Adrian pulls him close to share the warmth of his own skin, Hector’s back to his chest as he rests his cheek to a tanned shoulder blade. Hector leans his head back. He takes a deep, slow breath of the perfumed air. Adrian feels it leave his lungs where his hands rest over Hector’s breastbone.

“I’m sorry,” Hector whispers, his voice barely audible over the sound of running water. “I’ve been nothing but a burden to you. I owe you everything, and I’m very grateful. I am.” He places his hand over Adrian’s, over the ragged tempo of his heartbeat. 

Adrian steps around to face him, the gentle sounds of the water moving about them following in his wake. He reaches up to cradle Hector’s face in his hands, shaking his head in response. “You are not a burden,” he tells him, and Hector’s eyes are blindingly blue as they meet his own. “I chose you. I  _ will _ choose you, again and again. As many times as I have to in order to convince you that you are worth so much more than what they tried to make of you.” 

He catches the tears before they have a chance to truly fall, thumbs sweeping over the shadows that rim Hector’s eyes to brush them away. More come, faster than he can keep up with, and Adrian catches them in his palms like rainwater. “I don’t… I don’t think that I am,” Hector weeps, and Adrian shakes his head to disagree.

“You are.” He rests his forehead to Hector’s, stares straight into eyes as blue and fathomless as any ocean he’s ever seen. “I promise you are, Hector. You are kind, and you are brilliant, and you are filled with so much courage, so much strength it astonishes me at times.”

“Adrian, I would have  _ left _ you. Where is the courage in that?”

He kisses sweetly at the corner of Hector’s lips, feels them tremble against his own. “I know you’re frightened; you have every right to be, and I’ll not begrudge you for that. But you are not alone anymore. I want to help, but I need you to tell me how.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Then we will have to learn. Together. You’ll have to teach me. Does that sound fair?” For several moments, Hector is quiet. He simply gazes back at Adrian, as though trying to convince himself that everything he’s heard is the truth. When he finally relents, finally nods to him in understanding, it feels like nothing short of a breakthrough. Adrian kisses him again and Hector leans into it. “I love you,” Adrian murmurs to him. “Let me take care of you.”

Hector huffs a tearful laugh. “You’ve been taking care of me.”

Adrian smiles. “And I would continue, if you’ll allow me.”

“I love you,” he says back to him, and there are no more tears, save for those already shed.

Hector allows Adrian to help wash his hair. He keeps his touch featherlight against the tender skin at his scalp, fingers careful not to tug as they weave themselves through damp, silvery curls. Adrian uses his own shampoo as lather. He hadn’t expected how much he would enjoy the thought of Hector smelling of his soap, orange blossom bright against the mellow lavender of the water. It is familiar, and maybe a bit possessive, but it soothes something flighty and instinctive against his heart. He gently tilts Hector’s head back to rinse him free of bubbles, a hand draped over his eyes to protect them from the soap.

When he takes up the bottle to wash his own hair, still clumped and dirty with blood, Hector holds his hand out for it.

“Let me,” he offers, and Adrian blinks at him.

“You don’t have to.”

“I’d like to.”

Hector touches him as though he were something precious, something to be treasured. Adrian will never grow tired of it. His eyes flutter close as short nails drag over the curve of his skull, scrubbing suds into the sodden length of his hair. Hector gently wipes away errant smears of soap from his forehead. He does it with the same dedication he applies to all things that captivate him. It feels like a privilege.

“What happens now?” Hector asks him after his hair too has been rinsed, a slick weight against the back of his neck as he continues to wash. The bar of fig leaf soap glides over the graceful ridge of Hector’s collarbone. “What of the vampires in the forest?”

Adrian sinks down further, sliding forward in the seat carved into the wall of the bath until the water meets the base of his throat. “We’re fairly certain there’s only one left, and he’s been injured. Iri killed the one who shot Aria.”

“Good,” Hector breathes bitterly.

“They were scouts.” The resigned look on Hector’s face tells him he need not elaborate.

“From Styria.”

“Yes. The arrows were fletched with Styrian colors.” Trevor’s words from before sit darkly at the back of his mind. He tries not to dwell on them. “Iri managed to take his arm before they escaped. He won’t have gotten far.”

“He’s still out there?”

“Most likely.” Adrian does not miss the anxious glint that flares behind Hector’s eyes. “We’ll find him,” he assures him, though the words will no doubt do little to assuage the panic he can sense even through the perfumed clouds of steam. “Tomorrow night, Trevor and Sypha and I will comb the woods for him.”

“And then what?”

“Once he’s apprehended, we’ll take him down into the castle dungeons to question him.”

“You’re going to bring him here?” Hector asks him. Adrian nods, regretfully.

“He’ll be locked in a cell, Hector. You’ll never have to see him.”

“... What if I wanted to?”

That stuns him. Adrian sits for several seconds, speechless, the warm water lapping at his skin. The possibility that Hector might actually want to confront whoever it was that had come to drag him back to Carmilla had never crossed his mind. “Would you?”

“Perhaps I have some questions of my own.”

There is a creeping hostility in the words that seems so out of place, so foreign in Hector’s voice that it nearly sends a shiver through him. It should not come as a surprise that he would want answers, though he is fearful it may do more harm than it would help. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

For so many reasons, Adrian wants to tell him. He could be hurt and in more ways than one. It could do more damage to his heart than Adrian could bear to see again so soon. There were too many unknowns, too many factors in such a high risk scenario to leave up to chance.

What if Hector were to  _ recognize  _ him?

“We’ll speak more about this tomorrow,” he says decidedly, and he is relieved when Hector lets that matter be. The rest of their bath is spent in blissful quiet, the gentle splashing of lavender-scented water the only sound that rings against the marble. Hector tucks his head into the crook of Adrian’s shoulder. He rests his lips to the crown of his wet hair, draws him close against his side as they drift amongst the frothy bubbles that surround them.

* * *

“Would you like something to help you sleep?”

The fire murmurs happily in the grate of Hector’s bedroom, helping to ward off the errant pre-autumn chill. Dressed in clean, warm clothes, he chews at his lip as he considers Adrian’s offer.

“No,” is his answer in the end. “I would like to see her, if she wakes during the night.”

“I can’t guarantee she’ll be lucid enough for a visit, or that she’ll manage to stay awake long enough for one. It might be best to wait until morning.”

By the time they had emerged from the baths down below, dark had fallen over the Wallachian countryside in a great, black curtain. Trevor and Sypha had promised to patrol the estate grounds for anything suspicious. If it were just the one injured scout, it was highly unlikely anything would come of it, but as Hector peers out the window to see them gathered at the castle entrance he cannot deny he feels that much safer for them.

“I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Wait.” He closes fingers around the width of Adrian’s wrist, a mirror of what had transpired between them. Adrian blinks at him in the firelight. “Stay here tonight, with me. Please.”

“I…” He stammers, clearly not expecting it. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He gently pulls him toward the bed. “You said you wanted to stay close, in case Aria needs you.” Hector turns Adrian’s palm over, admiring the myriad of lines there with the tip of his ring finger. “And, truthfully, I’m sick to death of sleeping alone.”

The length of his throat fluctuates as he swallows thickly, eyes glued to where Hector continues to trace at his hand. Hector brings it to his lips to plant an ardent kiss at the center and hopes Adrian will recognize it for what it is. An olive branch. An apology. An invitation.

“All right,” he responds. Hector smiles faintly.

“Thank you,” he whispers against Adrian’s skin. “I’ve missed you.”

Adrian curls around him in their sheets, his mouth pressed sweetly to the nape of Hector’s neck, arms tugging him close. Their legs tangle together, cemented in place by an adamant Cezar, thankful to finally have them both in the same bed again. He sprawls out like Hector hasn’t seen him do in weeks, as though he hadn’t been able to fully relax since they’d begun to drift apart. Hector supposes he can relate.

No nightmares plague him, but his sleep is fitful. He jolts awake at every tiny sound, whether it be the shifting of the old furniture, the stray hoot of an owl outside in the trees. Each time he startles Adrian simply tugs him closer. He drags the pad of his thumb over Hector’s knuckles until his heart slows. Each time he falls back to sleep it is to the hallowed lullaby of Adrian’s breathing at his back.

Iri comes to them at some point during the night, her face peaky and her eyes wide with concern. She calls Adrian’s name as softly as she dares and then he is gone from their bed, once again reaching for the black bag he’d left by the door. Hector sits up to follow and he shakes his head.

“Go back to sleep,” he urges him, and he wants to argue but knows it won’t turn out in his favor.

“She’s in pain.” Iri’s fingers wring at the fabric of her shirt, twisting it into a mass of wrinkles. “She’s not really awake but she keeps telling me it hurts.”

They leave him for the room next door. Hector strains his ears for any sort of noise. He can hear their muffled voices, low as they are in hushed urgency. A high, breathy sound he thinks might be weeping. It stops after a while but the ache it leaves him with lingers. When Adrian returns he looks more tired than he had before.

“What did you give her?” Hector asks.

“Laudanum.” He crawls back beneath the blankets, reaching for the exhausted warmth of Hector’s body. “I didn’t want to, but I don’t think she would have slept again otherwise.”

“How was she?”

“The wound is the same. The pain must have woken her up. The sooner we get a handle on it, the less she’ll suffer.” Adrian pillows his head over Hector’s chest. He rests his ear over his heart. “She will need poppy seed tea in the morning.”

“I’ll mix it for you.”

“Thank you.”

They doze for the rest of the meager hours until sunrise. The fire burns out, and when Hector gets up to coax it back to life he finds himself unable to return to bed. Adrian had stirred when he got up, but he’d fallen back to sleep quickly enough. Hector kisses his brow before he leaves for the labs.

Poppy seed tea is not a difficult recipe. He brews it in a matter of minutes, balances it on a small metal tray to bring to Iri and Aria’s bedroom. As quietly as he can, he slips inside. Iri is still fast asleep at her sister’s side. Aria looks much the same: deathly pale and tiny under her quilts. He sits in the chair that still remains at her bedside to prepare a dose for her.

“Hector?”

The porcelain cup nearly tumbles from between his fingers.

Her eyes are foggy as they look up at him, but they are open. The same striking green of his memory, rimmed both by the pale gold of her lashes and the deep, bruise black of blood loss. Aria blinks at him as she comes to, and Hector feels as though the world is about to give out from under his chair.

“Hello,” he murmurs quietly, so as not to wake Iri. Aria smiles heavily at him.

“Good morning.” Her voice is creaky, like dried river reeds in the wind. He sucks in a breath.

“Good morning.”

Her face cracks into a grimace as she twists, a small hand peeking out from the top of the sheets. Hector grabs for it.

“Easy.”

Aria squeezes his palm. “Oh, but it is good to see you again,  _ mo chara. _ ”

Hector squeezes back. Outside their window, the sun breaks over the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!!!! Please please please leave a comment and let me know what you think!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _mo chara:_ my friend


	26. Part XXVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: vague description of sexual assault in this chapter
> 
> Hi guys! Sorry it's been so long :) I've sort of been working on some WIP's for fun, to try and get a little inspiration back for these ongoing fics. Looking to wrap Sozo up in a few more chapters.
> 
> By the way, if you like modern AU's I have one in progress! You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616130/chapters/56674912) if you want to read it!
> 
> A huge thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

The rain is determined to linger, it seems. The clouds had dispersed long enough to allow the dawn to peek through, painting them in saturated gold and pink against an otherwise grey sky, but only long enough to mark the end of night. Soon enough the autumn winds bring back with them a colorless drizzle that soaks the world outside cool and damp.

Hector has to help Aria sit up against her pillows. Her hand clutches at his palm, the muscles in her body straining against the discomfort of broken ribs and a stitched-together chest. He listens to the labored rhythm of her lungs as he gathers the blankets to pull them back over her.

“Thank you,” she tells him breathlessly.

“How are you feeling?”

Aria swallows thickly. “Sore. I have only just woken up and I am still so tired.” She looks down at her abdomen, her fingers hovering gingerly over where he knows her stitches lie. He almost reaches for her hand to pull it away before she can touch them but she stays still. “How long was I asleep?”

“All of yesterday; you were sedated. Do you remember waking last night?”

Her brow furrows as she struggles to summon forth anything prior to that morning. “No.” Aria shakes her head. She fidgets with the edge of the quilts. “I remember being shot,” she admits. She does reach for her side then, as though to feel for the arrow that was no longer there. “I lost my staff. Iri had to help me walk. I could not… I could not make it on my own. Everything else is mostly a blur; I remember seeing you, and Alucard, but it is very, very fuzzy. I remember being cold, and trying to shiver, but…”

“You lost a lot of blood.” Hector pours a dose of the poppy seed tea. She takes it when he offers it, her small hands curled around the warm china. The steady plume of steam dances over her face. “Drink. It will help with the pain.”

There is a soft sound from the other side of the bed, a fleeting huff of breath against the sheets. The commotion has stirred Iri awake, and when she rolls to face them her eyes are still heavy-lidded with sleep. They flicker up towards Aria’s face, then to Hector’s. Her hair is a wild, red bramble against the pillow.

“Has the sun risen?”

He nods to her. Iri sits up next to Aria. She places a kiss at her sister’s temple, deep and meaningful with emotion, and her arm comes to rest over her shoulders. Aria leans heavily into her embrace.

“Good morning,” she says to the both of them. _ “An bhfuil tú ag mothú níos fearr?” _

“Aye.” Aria sniffs, her lip quivering as she speaks. _ “Mar sin féin… ní dóigh liom go mbeidh mé ag canadh am ar bith go luath.” _

Iri tucks the crown of Aria’s head under her chin. She holds her as she cries, bandaged fingers stroking over her pale blonde hair. She looks sadly at Hector over Aria’s shoulder. He reaches out to rest a gentle hand over her back, feels her shudder with each gasping hiccup as they grate over damaged ribs. He wonders if this castle will ever have its fill of tears.

“If I brought something, do you think you could eat?”

Aria turns her head back to him. “Must you leave already? I have only just seen you.”

“I’ll be back before too long.” He smiles. “I promise.”

Hector stokes the fire before he goes. Over the noise of jumping sparks and crackling wood he can hear murmuring, Iri’s voice a soft hum as she whispers to her sister in their shared language. He understands very little of it but the dreamy cadence of the words is more than familiar to him by now. It follows him into his own room, lingers in his ears as he searches for a shawl to wrap himself with. The castle is chilly this early in the morning now, before the sun has had a chance to thaw the frost from the night before. Hector looks out the window and into the quickly greying haze of oncoming rain and knows the sun they’ve enjoyed during the summer months is all but spent.

He absentmindedly slips his hand into his pocket. The river stone from the day before is still there, smooth against his fingertips. It rings again, very faintly, a mellow hum against his leg. It is an oddly nostalgic feeling, like the melody of a lullaby buried under the years since his childhood. The thought perplexes him; his mother had never sung him lullabies, at least not to his recollection, and yet he couldn’t think of a better way to describe it. Something integral that resonates in his very bones.

Hector leaves the stone in his pocket. He tries to forget about the whole thing.

Adrian still sleeps in his bed. His face is serene against the down of Hector’s pillow, hair a messy curtain of golden silk over his neck. A pale hand stretches over the space Hector had occupied only a few minutes before, as if out of instinct. The warmth of his body has already bled from the sheets but still Adrian reaches, even through the mire of sleep.

His eyes flicker open as the mattress dips beneath Hector’s weight. Adrian lifts his head to face him. Something flashes briefly over his expression, naked and melancholic as they look at each other. Almost like relief. As if he’d been expecting to wake in a half-empty bed. Hector crawls closer and kisses him on the mouth. It tastes like an apology.

For a few precious moments, they say nothing. Adrian lends Hector’s icy feet the warmth of his own under the blankets. He settles easily into the contours of Hector’s body, nestles his face at the base of his throat to breathe in the quiet, tired scent of him. A hand fits itself under Hector’s shirt to spread fingers out over his heart while the other curls securely around his hip. Adrian feels like a furnace in his arms. He holds him there, soaking up the blissful heat of him like a greedy cat.

“Aria is awake,” he tells him. The answering nod is accompanied by a feather-light kiss to his clavicle.

“I hear them.” Hector idly cards through the silken length of Adrian’s hair. The flutter of his lashes feels sacred against his skin. “I’ll go to see her in a moment, but… just a little while longer of this. Please.”

Hard pressed to deny him, Hector acquiesces. He tucks his nose just behind the pale shell of his ear. Cezar snuffles sleepily at the foot of the bed, rolling into the tangle of their legs. The scene is so peaceful, Adrian so warm in his arms that Hector feels very tempted to simply fall back to sleep like this. His eyes grow heavy to the sound of dreary rain on glass but just before they close he shakes himself out of it.

“Would you like anything from the kitchen?” he asks, trying to muster the willpower to tear himself away from the bed. Adrian shakes his head.

“No, thank you.”

Hector kisses him one final time before getting up. His feet are once again cold as they meet the stone floors, but his heart is that much more thawed.

He hadn’t expected the kitchen would be occupied so early, yet Sypha and Trevor greet him from inside. They look wearily up from the table. A pot of tea sits between them.

“Good morning,” he says softly to them, moving to start up the stove.

“Morning.” Sypha throws him a wan smile. “Would you like some tea?”

“I’ll get it.” They look exhausted, and it occurs to him they must have just come in from their night watch. He pulls a mug from the cupboard to pour himself some. He adds his honey and lemon to the sound of a wide yawn from Trevor. It’s not quite as hot as he likes anymore, but it does help to chase away the cold.

“Did your friend pass the night okay?” Sypha’s eyes are wide as she asks. He remembers that the first and only time she’d ever seen Aria had been as she’d bled away in his arms at the top of the stairs. He supposes things must have looked fairly bleak for her then.

Hector nods. “She’s awake. A bit groggy.” He adjusts the shawl around his shoulders, using his empty hand to keep it closed. “Adrian’s with her now. I’ve come down to find something she might eat.”

“Can I help?”

Hector blinks. He exchanges a cautious look with Trevor behind her. He’s had Sypha’s cooking, and while she’s made a little progress in producing somewhat edible meals under Adrian’s careful eye, he’s not entirely sure he’s ready to feed her work to Aria. “That’s all right,” he tells her, trying for a thankful expression. “You don’t have to.”

“I would like to. It’s…” She sinks in her chair, shoulders hunched as she grapples to find the right words. “Speakers help people. It’s difficult to sit by and keep still, knowing there’s a little girl in pain just up the stairs.”

Trevor places one of his large hands over her wrist. He gives her a fond look. Hector is suddenly struck by a longing so strong it nearly winds him. He thinks of Adrian’s hair over his pillow, silvery in the rainy sunlight from the window. The hand he’d placed over Hector’s heart feels as though it’s left a mark, a beautiful brand somewhere beneath his skin. It aches in his absence.

“I would appreciate the help,” he tells Sypha. Her face lights up. She hides a grin behind her palm. As she gets up from the table, giving Trevor’s hand an affectionate pat, Hector pulls out a couple of pots.

“I have to admit,” she says as she washes her hands, “I’m not sure what you would serve a faerie for breakfast. Pastries? Acorns? Sausages?”

“They don’t eat meat.” He starts to unearth ingredients from the pantry. “Though Aria would probably love to be served pastries at every meal, I had something more substantial in mind. I’m not sure about the acorns.”

Oats with stewed berries had been one of her favorites before she and her sister left the castle. He wouldn’t touch the stuff himself, but it was simple and filling and hot. She preferred them baked, he knew, but he isn’t willing to spend the extra time for that. He tasks Sypha with stirring the pot so the bottom doesn’t burn while he relieves the last of that summer’s berries of their stems.

“It will probably be a while before we have a chance to really meet them, I guess.”

“Uh, yeah,” he hears Trevor say from the table. If he sounds a bit guilty, Hector says nothing about it. “Don’t really think either of them are eager for visitors right now, Sypha.”

“I know, but I have so many _ questions. _Do you realize how rare it is to come across genuine Fae magic in this part of the world?”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Trevor gets up. He walks over to Sypha and brushes his lips across her temple. “I’m going to bed. You should too, once you're done here. We have a long night ahead of us.”

Hector stills. He tries to act as though the reminder hasn’t just sent his heartbeat into a frenzy of unwanted emotion, but if either of them looked his way they would see just how badly his hands shake against the countertop.

“Can I ask you some things?” Sypha asks after Trevor has left. Hector nods quietly, trying to concentrate on cooking down his berries. He adds a handful of sugar to them without really measuring. “What sorts of spells have you seen from them? I’m curious.”

“Well.” He swallows nervously. “Aria is trained mostly in healing magic. She can mend injuries though illnesses are a bit more complex to her. I’ve seen Iri do some more mundane things, like lighting fires or moving objects. I think she can teleport short distances as well.”

“What about in combat?”

“I don’t…” Hector bites his tongue. He’s spent an ample amount of time trying to forget about that one terrible night on the road. Images flash behind his eyes. Aria’s silvery barrier deflecting a wave of arrows. The haunting refrain of screams that had erupted from the forest. The gruesome pillars of vines cocooning bloodless corpses with their deceptively beautiful, white flowers. The glistening head of Iri’s arrow plunging into Miron’s eye socket, again and again.

Christ. He hasn’t so much as _ thought _ of that name in months.

“That might be something you’ll have to discuss with them.” He tries not to sound so cold, but he’s not sure he manages. “What little I saw I don’t understand. I wouldn’t be very helpful.”

He knows Sypha can tell something is off, that the mood between them has shifted. She thankfully leaves it alone and stares down into the pot of oats. “It’s funny. When I first started to study magic, my grandfather would tell me stories of Fae folk and their spells. Humans can’t replicate faerie magic, so all we ever had was stories.” She laughs quietly. “I never dreamed I’d have the chance to meet one. Not in Wallachia.”

“Humans can’t replicate Fae magic?”

Sypha shakes her head. “It’s… complicated. From what I’ve read.” She brushes her bangs back behind her ear. “Humans and vampires aren’t born knowing magic; it’s something we learn. Some humans, like you, have a natural talent for it that can manifest very early on. Vampires usually tend to be more adept, given their longer lifespans and their connection to the night.”

“But faeries are born into magic.”

“Yes. It’s in their blood. They’re not tied to either Heaven or Hell, like night creatures, or vampires, or monsters. Not like the church says. They’re earth spirits; they’re connected to the Earth in a way we simply aren’t.” Sypha taps the wooden spoon against the side of the pot. “Or, at least that’s what scholars think. They’re not exactly known for being forthcoming with people.”

It is probably for good reason, Hector thinks darkly. The scars at Iri’s back come to mind, as do the ones he’d seen mirrored at Aria’s. The words of Carmilla’s archer that terrible night on the road resurface. _ Blood worth its weight in gold. _“Is that why their blood is so sought after?”

“It is. Fae magic is powerful, but it’s still largely a mystery. If there’s no faerie to channel it, blood can serve as a sort of conduit. It’s messy, and not very stable, but that doesn’t stop some from trying.”

Hector suddenly remembers the stone still sitting in his pocket. His fingers close around it, sticky with juice from the berries. It hums to life at his touch. A gentle ringing fills his ears. It reminds him of the sound a half-full wine glass makes when the rim is traced with a wet fingertip. Almost like the tinkling of a tiny, chiming bell.

Oddly enough, Sypha does not seem to hear it.

“Well,” she breathes, grimacing tiredly. “This is gloomy. Shall we change the subject?”

He listens as she continues to chatter on, delving into fairy tales she’d been told as a girl. It is surprisingly nice to listen to. There had been no one to tell him stories when he was a child, and who better to hear them from than a Speaker? Sypha’s voice helps to again lay to rest the anxiety that had sprung forth with shaky memories he’d rather leave buried.

He builds two bowls of the breakfast they’ve put together, leaving the rest for Sypha to share with Trevor. He tops the oats with the stewed fruit and a drizzle of honey. As he wipes his hands on a clean kitchen towel, Sypha quickly leans in to kiss him on the cheek. It stuns him. It’s a token of affection she normally saves for Trevor or Adrian. Not for him.

“I know things are difficult now,” she says softly, “but try not to worry too much today. Whatever happens tonight, we will keep you safe. I promise.”

Hector stares at her, utterly astonished by what she has just told him. More astonishing is, despite all that has happened, despite the disquiet that grips him, he can’t help but to believe her. To be relieved for it.

“Thank you,” is all he can think to say. Sypha lays a kind hand over his shoulder. She offers him a comforting look and then she is gone through the kitchen door, leaving him standing there by the stove holding two bowls of the meal she’s just helped him prepare.

The weight that settles in his chest is poignant, but not heavy. Almost as though it belongs there.

Adrian has come and gone by the time Hector returns. He’s left a familiar antibiotic tonic at Aria’s bedside as well as fresh bandages around her wound. Iri is no longer in bed.

“She’s gone to take a bath,” Aria mutters dejectedly into her pillow. _ “I _would like a hot bath.”

“Not until—”

“—not until the stitches come out. Adrian has already told me as much.”

Despite the sour tone to her voice, Hector smiles. He helps her to sit up and hands her one of the bowls, leaving the other at the bedside table for her sister. “If you like,” he says, pouring her another dose of the poppy seed tea, “I can bring you hot water for the wash basin this afternoon.”

“... That would be very nice.” Aria puts her bowl in her lap. The tea has grown cold by now. He watches as she blows steadily into her cup. After a few seconds its contents begin to steam again, aided by the magic she breathes into it. “Thank you.”

She eats very little, mostly picking at the sweetened, syrupy berries over top the oats, but Hector doesn’t press her on it. It’s enough for now, and by the time she pushes the bowl away she looks paler, as though she’s beginning to feel ill. Aria shivers beneath her blankets and he reaches to pull them tighter around her.

“I am cold,” she tells him, and the tiny murmur pulls at his heartstrings. Her small hand stretches towards his. The sudden bloom of emotion between his ribs leaves him little choice but to take it. “Sit with me?”

Wordlessly, he gives in. He doesn’t think he could put up much of a protest if he tried. He carefully climbs in beside Aria, sitting back against the headboard of the bed so that she can rest her head at his shoulder. Hector wraps his shawl around her tiny, shaking frame, and she sighs blissfully at the warmth it lends her.

This is wrong. All of it. As Aria serenely fades back into sleep, aided along by the poppies, Hector can’t help but to lament the reunion they had been all but robbed of. Months he’d spent anticipating his friends’ faces on their return, the joy he’d expected to find there. Instead, it was all pain. Pain, blood, and fear. He is glad now for the light of her eyes, for the heat of her breath against his arm, but it should not have happened this way. None of it should have happened this way.

He gently rests his cheek to the top of her head. The chill that has followed him all morning slowly melts away from his limbs, and as the feeble drumming of the rain weighs down on his eyelids Hector lets the exhaustion take him. For the moment he forgets about the cold, about the threat in the woods and the uncertainty of what’s to come, and for what feels like the first time in a small eternity he simply _ sleeps. _

* * *

Adrian had come back to check on them, to make sure Aria had eaten something, anything to accompany the sedatives still coursing through her system. He’s brought her another dose of laudanum to help her sleep through the night should the poppy seed tea not be enough. He’s also come to see that Hector was still all right. He’s fretting, he knows, but the despair he’d felt at walking in to see him packing a bag to leave still sat ominously in the back of his mind. It isn’t that he’s still worried he would leave. He’d promised to stay, and Hector has never lied to him. However, when Adrian thinks back to the frightened, lost look in his eyes the day before, he worries.

Now, gazing on from the doorway as Hector and Aria dream away in the sisters’ bed, it feels as though the storm clouds over his psyche have dispersed. Hector’s face lacks the tense edge he’s held for so long as he sleeps. Aria lies curled next to him on her uninjured side, wrapped in her blankets and Hector’s shawl. Her head has sunken so that it lies pillowed over his chest, and Hector’s hand has fallen to rest at her elbow. It is the most at ease he’s looked in weeks.

He supposes it shouldn’t come as a shock he would find peace in this room. Adrian knew that before they left there had been many a night Hector came to find the two sisters in the wake of a nightmare. He’d thought it strange at first, but now as he looks on from afar, he understands. They are the closest to family he has probably ever known. Adrian would never begrudge him for that.

When he’d been a young boy, Adrian had asked his parents if he would ever have a sibling. Many times, both with a child’s happy enthusiasm and with lonely tears, he had begged them for a brother or a sister to play with, to love, to share with a common ground he could never find amongst any of the village children. It had no doubt been difficult for them to explain to their son that his wish would never be granted. He hadn’t understood then. He hadn’t known where children came from, or why the circumstances of his own birth were so unique. It had been so arduous for his mother and father to bring him into the world that to do it again was simply not feasible.

How very poetic, he thinks, a bit jealously, that fate had thought to gift Hector with not one, but two sisters.

He could hear Iri’s footsteps down the hall, her feet bare against the ornate rug, but can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from the sight before him. She steps in beside him, toweling at her wet hair. They stand there together for a few moments and simply watch. Neither seem willing to shatter the calm lull that envelopes the room. He will have to leave soon, Adrian knows, but this tiny respite in the turmoil that has laid claim to them all is a liberty he feels entirely justified in taking. In this room, just for a handful of seconds, it is almost easy to imagine that everything is as it should be.

“Tonight,” he says to Iri, “while we are in the forest. I need you to look after him.”

“Of course.” She says it quickly, as though the idea were second nature to her by now. He supposes it might be.

“Keep him here, upstairs, at least until the dust has settled. Until morning if you can. I fear he might do something rash.”

“You cannot keep him from this,” she tells him. Adrian’s jaw clenches. “Especially not if he insists on having the truth for himself. If he wants closure, then by all means you should do your best to give it to him.”

“And what if closure is not what he finds, but more pain?”

“One does not always come without the other. That does not make it any less crucial.”

She is right, and that might be what makes him the most bitter. She’s always so fucking infuriatingly right.

“Here.” He holds the glass bottle of laudanum out to her. Iri takes it from him. She opens it to study its contents. “Give it to her before she sleeps tonight. She will need to eat something first; taken on an empty stomach and it will likely make her ill.”

“Thank you.”

He spares one last look to the sleeping man on the bed before he leaves.

Adrian spends the rest of the day alone. In the dungeons he prepares a cell for their future prisoner. He sets out whatever they might need for questioning: potions, tools, high-grade restraints fit to subdue a vampire at his full strength. He remembers the first night his father had brought him down here so that he might see the gruesome reality that came with being the master of this castle. He wonders if Dracula had ever anticipated his son might have to bear this burden alone. Perhaps he did then.

When he is done, he holes himself away in his study until nightfall. As the sun sinks the already gray pallor of daylight quickly shifts into a forebodingly black blue. The woods will be muddy and cold, hardly ideal conditions for hunting, but there is nothing to be done about it. Adrian goes to his bedroom to pull on his overcoat, his leather gloves and his boots. He straps the hilt of his sword into his belt, slides the blade cleanly into its sheath. It’s been a very long while since he’s seen true battle. Not since that night of the blood moon. Not since he’d faced his father.

Adrian lifts his head to see Hector lingering in the doorway.

The sleep seems to have lifted the worst of the exhaustion from his face. The familiar shadows under his eyes have faded somewhat, the dull wash to his skin nearly gone, but his face is grim. Adrian crosses the distance between them, his sword a grave weight at his side. He grazes the cut of Hector’s jaw with the backs of his knuckles.

“Stay up here for the night,” he begs of him. “Don’t come downstairs. Not until sunrise. Please.”

Hector says nothing. He promises nothing. Adrian finds his answer in the way he avoids his eyes, and it chills him. Hector cranes his neck, tugging him forward by the lapels of his coat to place a long, chaste kiss to a pale cheek.

“Be careful.”

“I will,” Adrian tells him, and then he is gone.

Sypha and Trevor wait for him in the main hall, both dressed for a fight. Sypha’s Speaker’s cloak sits firmly wrapped around her shoulders. Both of Trevor’s whips lie coiled at his waist, one on each hip.

The great mechanism of the enormous lock that decorates Castlevania’s front doors grinds to a close as it shuts behind them. Outside, the rain has not quite come to a halt, and the wind that whips around them is brisk. It isn’t quite the frigid ice of winter, but it’s cool enough to inspire an intermittent shiver from Sypha beside him.

“I found a few tracks this afternoon,” Trevor tells them as they approach the tree line. “A ways off from the wagon. They were faint and mostly ruined by the rain, but it’s somewhere to start.”

Sypha illuminates their way with a handful of flame. They follow Trevor towards his tracks. Adrian kneels to get a better look at them, half swallowed as they are by the mud. “They’re not that old,” he says. “From last night.”

“He’s got a limp.” Trevor lowers himself at his side. “He’ll have wanted to find shelter, something to feed from. And if he was in bad enough shape he won’t have gone far.”

“Let’s look around, then,” Sypha says quietly. An owl hoots somewhere in the distance and her eyes flicker towards the sound. “Before it grows any later and he decides to make a break for it.”

They scour the nearby undergrowth, fanning out to cover more ground. Sypha and Trevor take one direction while he takes the other, as he didn’t need the aid of her fire to see in the dark. Adrian toes his way through puddles and shrubs, dodging tall, old pine trees as he looks. The unfortunate weather has muddled his senses. The gentle murmur of rain does nothing to help his hearing, and the fog that blankets the ground in some places is no help either. The cold does not quite affect him the way it would a true human but it dulls his sense of smell.

A low whistle from Sypha alerts him that they have found something. He finds them in a thick patch of trees, staring down at something on the ground. The mangled carcass of a small doe, its throat torn away where a hunter might cut to bleed his quarry before stringing it up. This close, Adrian finally gets a whiff of day-old, rotting blood. Trevor lifts the animal’s skull to get a better look.

“Well,” he mutters, “he’s either a shit scout, or he’s getting desperate.”

“How much strength would a deer’s blood restore to a vampire missing an arm?” Sypha asks.

Adrian shrugs. “Immediately? Not as much as you would expect. With a day’s rest, however, potentially enough to make it into the nearest settlement and find a more restorative meal.”

“Let’s hurry, then.”

Adrian follows the stench of deer carrion to another half-melted footprint. They find more off to the side of a forgotten forager’s path nearly overrun with ferns and roots. Some of the tracks look as though there was an attempt at covering them, but it is clumsy, as though someone had struggled to do it. At the end of the path lies an old, dark, decrepit cabin.

Beneath the lazy hum of the rain, Adrian can hear the unmistakable beat of a slow, undead heart from within.

“Is he in there?” Trevor asks him, and Adrian nods.

“He’s still asleep. With no coffin, he’ll likely have ripped up the floorboards to hide below them.”

Trevor turns to Sypha. “Do you have the restraints?” She nods, reaching under her robes to hand him a ringed length of coiled, consecrated silver wire from the Belmont hold. “Right.” His hand falls with purpose to Vampire Killer where it sits at his belt. He looks to Adrian. “You and I will get ourselves inside to flush him out from wherever he’s hiding. Sypha should stay out here; it’s fairly damp, but I’d like to avoid sending the whole place up in flames if we can. Hopefully we’ll be able to slap these on him before he has a chance to run, but if he does make it out,” he says, looking pointedly at her, “torch the bastard. I’d rather not loose a crazed, crippled vampire on the local village folk.”

“Okay.” Sypha nods, her teeth chattering as she shivers. “Let’s be quick about this. It’s freezing out here.”

Adrian and Trevor leave her behind the trees. They move silently through the moon-dappled clearing, Adrian with the skilled grace of a predator and Trevor with the practiced tact of a hunter. When they reach the door, Adrian flattens himself against the wall to listen. That sluggish facsimile of a heartbeat still thuds away on the inside.

Trevor pushes lightly at the door. It creaks softly on its hinges. The beating stops.

They strike.

* * *

The chill from that morning never truly left the castle.

Hector has moved his chair closer to the fire. He warms himself there, curled up with his legs folded beneath him. He’d surrendered his shawl to Aria hours ago, and she still holds it tightly around her shoulders even now as she sleeps. She’s slept much of the day, only waking occasionally to either him or her sister encouraging her to drink or eat something. The evening dose of laudanum has done its job in calming her for the night.

Iri sits at her bedside in his absence. She has resigned herself to the task of restringing her bow. It had been broken during the struggle, she’d told him, and she’d had to resort to the long knife she kept strapped to her thigh. She sings now as she works, a song in her own language that he doesn’t remember having heard before. It used to shock him, just how many songs they knew, but he supposes with nearly 400 years of life he might have picked up a few himself.

He’s missed her voice, he realizes as he listens. It had been an unspoken longing while they were gone, to hear them singing or humming through the cavernous halls of the castle. The lack of song meant the lack of his friends. Now, though, as Iri whispers a melody to her sleeping sister, Hector understands it is so much more than that. The singing is healing. It is a way to be close, like a kiss or an embrace. It is how they say _ I love you. _He wishes it were enough to lull him into sleeping as well.

There is a noise from outside. A savage, strangled sound. Like a shout.

Hector’s head snaps towards the bedroom window when he hears it. Iri’s eyes lift from her bow to look at him and they are wide with concern. “Hold on,” she says to him, but he is already out of his chair, already to the window, his heart hammering between his ribs.

The three of them, Adrian, Sypha, and Trevor, are making their way up the road toward the castle from the Belmont estate. The way is lit by Sypha’s magicked fire. Behind them they drag the source of the noise: a thrashing, snarling figure shrouded in black and constrained by looping, silver wire.

Hector cannot see his face.

He bolts towards the door.

“Hector, _ wait!” _

Iri’s voice follows him out into the hallway, but he ignores it. He can hear her get up to chase him, but with the wound in her leg she can’t keep up. He storms his way through the corridor, down stairways and landings until his lungs feel like they might burst in his chest. When he reaches the main hall the doors have only just begun to open, the intricate cogs of the lock whirring to life.

Adrian steps through first and the front of his shirt is splashed with blood. There are claw marks ripped into the fabric in great slashes, yet the skin beneath them is still unmarred white. He doesn’t move as though he’s injured, and as Sypha and Trevor file in behind him, hauling their writhing quarry behind him, Adrian sees him at the top of the grand staircase.

They stare at each other for a long, agonizing moment, but Hector does not move. He waits, and his legs shake beneath his own weight. Trevor wrestles with their captive and in the commotion the vampire’s gaunt face meets the light. He tosses his head as he’s shoved forward, eyes darting about the room.

When they land on Hector they are horrible, beady black.

Suddenly, he is frozen. Every breath that shudders through his seizing lungs feels like an inhalation of splintered, broken glass in his throat. The blood roaring in his ears heightens to a fever pitch, a screaming chorus that throws his balance off kilter, numbs his tongue in his mouth so he can’t speak—

_ A hand at his nape, his hair tangled in a clawed fist so tight he cannot move, can barely breathe against it, air sizzling between his teeth as he tries to gasp through the pain splitting its way up his spine, through his bones, into every crevice of his skull until he is convinced it will crack. _

_ He coughs into his filthy, tattered pillow, squirms in a vain attempt to dislodge the fingers in his hair. The coarse blanket burns his knees with each jostling thrust, all of them punctuated with a bitten off growl ground into his ear. More clawed fingers scratch their way over his ribs, down the length of his starved body until they close around flaccid, tender flesh. _

No,_ he snaps, his voice muffled into the pillow. _ No, no, no no no, _ to the hand as it moves, trying to coax some twisted imitation of pleasure from him that he knows he’s not capable of, not here, not now, not as the pain sears into nothing him from the inside. He tries to shove the hand away, rakes his nails into the cold, dead skin around the wrist and for his troubles he’s rewarded with the tightening of the grip in his hair until he can feel some of the strands tear loose. _

_ His head is yanked back so that his body follows, sitting on bloodied knees as he bounces against a skinny, cold chest. He can feel teeth at his throat. There are teeth at his throat, teeth at his throat, teeth at his fucking throat and they sting as they scrape over his skin, blood dripping hot and thick from the wounds they leave behind. _

Stop it, you can’t, you can’t, she said you CAN’T

_ A blow to his temple that lands so hard it blinds him even in the dark, and then those teeth scale their way over his jaw, over his cheek, round bite marks following in their wake. A slimy tongue drags over his skin to lick at the tears and the blood mingling there and he screams so hard he thinks his throat might tear— _

The guard grins. He looks up at Hector through filthy, stringy hair, eyes gleaming madly in the electric lights of the grand hall. And he laughs.

It’s an awful sound, one that sets every hair on his body to stand on end. Trevor knocks the laugh loose from the guard’s mouth with a well-aimed fist that renders him quiet.

“Go back upstairs,” Adrian shouts to him. Hector goes. Through the weakness in his knees and the anger in his veins he climbs as the rest of them descend into the dungeons. When he gets to the top of the stairs he has to lean against the wall for support.

When Iri finds him he’s sunken to the floor, crumpled against the ancient, ornate rug like a paper doll. She limps her way towards him, throws herself down beside him as Hector tries to remember how exactly it is that his diaphragm needs to move in order to breathe.

“Hector.”

She says his name so softly he almost can’t hear her over the sound of his own heaving lungs. Tears burn at his eyes, and it is not with the familiar, bitter despair he’s grown to know so well since he’d met Carmilla, but a molten, earth-shattering _ rage. _ It spits in his blood like poison. He shudders with each powerful wave of it. His hands tremble against the floor.

Iri reaches for him. He sags against her, impotent in his anger and his frailty. She winds her arms around his back and holds him close, guides his head to rest in the crook of her neck. Hector presses his face into her throat as he shakes and _ screams. _

“You are all right,” she murmurs through his cries, lips pressed into the mess of his hair. “You are all right, my love. You are safe. You are all right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!! Please leave a comment! AO3's email system is still a little messed up, but I promise I check in to read and appreciate every single one!!!!!!!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _An bhfuil tú ag mothú níos fearr?:_ Are you feeling better?
> 
> _Mar sin féin… ní dóigh liom go mbeidh mé ag canadh am ar bith go luath.:_ However... I do not think I will be singing anytime soon.


	27. Part XXVII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: descriptions of sexual assault in this chapter.
> 
> Hi! Again, sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I wanted to make sure this particular chapter was as clean as I could make it.
> 
> By the way, if you like modern AU's I have one in progress! You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616130/chapters/56674912) if you want to read it!
> 
> Thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading and blindwolfgrasshopper for the help!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Adrian had never relished any time spent in his father’s dungeons. They’d frightened him as a child. He can’t recall ever having been afraid of the dark, not in the way most children are, but the closest he’s ever come to it had been down in these endless depths below the castle. It was a wariness that had followed him into his brief adolescence, and then into adulthood.

Here, now, staring into the face of the Styrian scout they have plucked from the woods, he cannot say he likes it any better.

The man looks, to put it kindly, a little worse for wear. His leathers were torn in the scuffle earlier in the night to reveal the filthy underclothes beneath. The hair on his head is lank and dirty where it hangs in front of his snarling face. The right sleeve of his tunic is empty and limp; it’s been knotted under where the elbow should be. The smell of clotted, undead blood still clings to him. Adrian wrinkles his nose.

“Hold his head to the side. Keep him still.”

Even weakened as he is, subdued by the consecrated silver bindings and missing an arm, the vampire has put up an impressive fight every step of the way. An hour in this bleak little cell and he’s already managed to blacken Trevor’s eye and nearly break Sypha’s wrist. And that had been after they finally got him strapped into the chair.

Trevor wraps an arm around the scout’s neck, using his other hand to yank his head the other way. He is careful all the while to ignore the gnashing fangs. Adrian tests the syringe in the weak light from the electric lamps doing their best to combat the heavy darkness that surrounds them. A few air bubbles bob to the top of the solution housed inside.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” the stranger drawls, his beady eyes following the glass and metal tube in Adrian’s hands.

“Truth serum.” He jabs it into the pale, cold flesh of his throat as deliberately ungentle as possible. The scout grunts as Adrian depresses the plunger. When he finishes the syringe is tossed back to the tray it had come from. “It should compel you to honesty, and make you feel more inclined to answer questions.”

“What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll fib to you?”

“Think of it as the three of us doing you a favor,” Sypha says, feigning sweetness. She raises a hand, a smoldering fistful of fire summoned forth with all the effort it takes to breathe. “You’re of no use to us if you lie.”

He hisses at her. The airy rasp makes him seem like a feral thing. Like an animal. Trevor drops his arms from around the vampire’s neck.

“The serum will need a minute or so to take effect,” Adrian informs them, “so let us start with something a little more inconsequential.” He stares down his nose at the scout in the chair, clasps his hands serenely at his back. “What is your name?”

“Fuck yourself, half-breed.”

He spits in Adrian’s face.

Adrian blinks, once, in a subdued moment of shock. He takes a quick breath to calm himself before primly wiping away the flecks of fetid saliva from his cheek with the back of his glove. The same hand curls into a fist before it slams into the scout’s cheekbone, lightning quick and hard enough for something in his face to _ crack. _

The vampire grunts in pain, his head hanging in a dazed stupor. Adrian bends at the knee to bring their gazes level with one another. The hatred he finds there is tepid in the face of his own deliberate indifference.

“Let me make one thing clear: you are not going to survive this encounter. I am going to kill you. Of that, you can be sure. I simply haven’t yet decided _ when, _ or _ how.” _

The scout laughs. He spits again, this time at the ground. It’s mostly blood. “It just seems a little excessive. All this effort to catch and grill me, and for what? A willful little excuse for a forgemaster? A lost dog strayed too far from his mistress’s chain?”

The errant flare of indignation dances across his face before he can tamp it down. He knows the scout sees it, but Adrian chooses to keep his mouth shut. His jaw clenches. Seeing that he’s touched a nerve, the vampire continues to prattle on.

“Not sure what use he’d be to you, anyway. He doesn’t have his hammer; he can’t forge for you. Not like he used to. He can’t fight, can’t or won’t do his magic, not really even that good of a _ lay _ if you ask me—”

The rest of that vile sentence is interrupted by a pained shout as Trevor reaches down and wrenches the man’s pinky and ring finger back to meet his wrist. The bones snap loose as he does it. He shrugs. “Oops.”

“My friend here is the last of the Belmonts. I expect you might have heard of them. He wanted to just stake you on the spot and be done with it, and believe me when I say he’s more than capable of it.” Adrian holds a hand in Sypha’s direction. “And she is a Speaker magician. I’m certain she would love nothing more than to send you up in a plume of flame, or run you through with a barrage of icicles.”

The fire between Sypha’s fingers swells for just an instant. “Oh, you’re too right about that.”

“Together, the three of us killed Vlad Dracula here in his castle. Imagine what we are going to do to _ you, _should you decide to make this any more difficult than it has to be.” It is then that he sees it, with the reality sinking in behind the beady stare. True, honest fear. Carmilla’s scout follows Adrian with his eyes as he straightens to stand up. “Now, I will ask you again. What is your name?”

For several seconds, the only response he gets is the frail silence that seems to hum along the stone walls. The vampire continues to glare at him, seething with poorly suppressed animosity. “Anton,” he says at last. It seems to startle him just how easily the answer had slipped forth. Adrian smiles faintly.

“That’ll be the serum. Let’s begin then, shall we, Anton?”

“Did Carmilla send you?” Trevor asks, anxious to get into the heart of the matter.

“Yes.”

“When? On what mission?”

“Got here about a fortnight ago.” Anton grimaces as more and more information spills from him like a wellspring. “We were instructed to monitor the castle and report our findings. See who came and went, where they went, and why. If the opportunity to take the forgemaster presented itself we were meant to grab him and bring him back to Styria, but otherwise we had strict orders to stay low.”

“Are there any more of you left in the woods?”

“No.”

“You brought iron weapons with you,” Sypha says. “Why?”

Anton grins. “For the faeries.”

“Dead faeries are worth less than live ones. Why kill them?”

“We were only told to kill the older sister, the redhead, and take the little one alive.”

“Well,” Trevor scoffs, “royally fucked that one up, didn’t you? Got it the other way round.”

“The arrow was meant for the other one!” Anton barks defensively. He bares his teeth at them all. “Stupid brat jumped in the way at the last second. Botched the whole damn thing.”

“She wants Aria for what?” Adrian asks. “Blood, I’m assuming? For Fae magics? Why not take the both of them then?” He can guess as to the reasoning behind it; it would have been far easier to kill Iri than to take her sister from her, or vice versa. Carmilla’s scouts would never have made it back to Styria alive with two of them in tow.

Trevor sighs. “Probably to hold her as some sort of ransom in hopes of luring Hector out of the castle.”

It chills Adrian to think that even without actually having gotten her hands on Aria, that had very nearly worked.

Again, Anton laughs at them. Adrian very sorely wants to hit him again, as the sound is starting to grate on his nerves. “That’s not all she wanted,” he realizes. “Carmilla needed her for something else. What is it?”

“Thought you were supposed to be Dracula’s genius son. Would have figured the Belmont out of all of you would have pieced it together by now. Didn’t your lot make a living out of studying monsters in their secret library?”

Trevor helps himself to another finger. The strangled scream it earns him nearly drowns out his voice. “Enough beating around the bush. Explain.”

“You heard the shrieking.” Anton forces each word between his fangs, punctuated by the pain of Trevor’s hands curling around his crumpled digits. The memory of that morning in the surgery comes to mind for Adrian. The shrill din of Aria’s voice as she’d screamed at them, her eyes a ghostly white as all the glass in the room had shattered. That day in the study however many months ago, when one word from her had been enough to rattle the castle walls and the books on their shelves. The oppressive, ancient magic that had lingered in the aftermath. “Hell, _ I _heard her wailing as I slept under that shoddy little cabin. I’ll bet it woke half of bloody Wallachia. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Adrian watches as it all falls into place for Trevor. The puzzled line of his brow suddenly lifts, expression morphing into an epiphany. His eyes widen as they meet Adrian’s, lips parting in an incredulous gape. “No. She’s mad. She has to be.”

“Trevor what is it?” Sypha asks him urgently.

“Carmilla wanted Aria because she means to make her into a fucking banshee.”

Adrian turns his head to look at him. The uneasiness he finds in Trevor’s face is not something he’s used to. “A banshee?” He knows little of banshees. Nothing more than a few excerpts stumbled across in the odd bestiary here and there. Nothing substantial.

“Wailing spirits. They’re rare. And _ extremely _dangerous. Only a lunatic would go about seeking one out, much less trying to create one.”

“How would she even do that?”

“Well,” Sypha ponders gravely. “It’s theoretically possible, I suppose. All banshees were Fae, once. When their hearts are broken, their grief consumes them. It twists them into spectral creatures, not quite living and not quite dead. Like a ghost but far more powerful.” She shudders. “Faeries live long lives. The sheer despair needed to change one is almost unfathomable. A natural born banshee is tragic enough, but to _ create _ one? It’s… despicable.”

“And fucking insane.” Trevor bears down on Anton. He grabs him by the back of his stringy hair. “The church didn’t need to do a lot of convincing ordinary people that the Fae are creatures to be feared, and there’s a bloody good reason. One banshee alone can wipe out whole villages in a single night. Imagine what it could do trapped inside a castle.”

“What was Carmilla planning to do with a banshee?” Adrian asks their captive. “I fail to see how loosing a monster on her own people would be advantageous.”

“It wouldn’t be. Carmilla and her sisters have plans.”

Adrian blinks. “Sisters?”

“Plans to what? Surely not to try and keep one as her own.” Trevor presses Anton for an answer, but he gets nothing. He shakes his head in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“The Styrian court dabbles in magics and technologies that would spin your head, boy. You know nothing of what my mistresses are capable of. Dracula was not the only one to adhere to the true sciences.”

“Science has fuck all to do with it! You can’t _ leash _ a banshee. They cannot be reasoned with. They’re swayed by nothing save their own misery, and the only way to cure one is to kill it. You’d sooner be able to catch a hurricane with a fishing net, and just as likely to die in the process.”

“That’s to mention nothing of the repercussions undoubtedly to come with slaying the faerie queen’s daughters.” Adrian crosses his arms in thought. Anton falls silent. He narrows his eyes, like he has no idea what Adrian is talking about. “Murdering one of her children and then turning the remaining one into a monster sounds like an excellent way to barter for war with the Seelie Court. Banshee or no, I doubt Styria has the resources to withstand an assault from both a horde of dragons and Titania herself.”

Anton’s gaze darts between the three of them, as though he were looking for answers. The vacant expression on his face is telling. “I… We were only told to find the ones that stole the forgemaster. I don’t know anything about any faerie queen’s daughters.”

Sypha frowns. “Strange, considering you almost _ killed _ one yesterday morning.”

“They don’t know.” It dawns on him then. “Carmilla has no idea who it is she’s hunting.”

“Jesus,” Trevor breathes. “It just might have been worth it to let her take the girl, if only to watch it fall to shit around her.”

“No,” Sypha insists, throwing him a dark look, “it wouldn’t have. By what means do they intend to harness their banshee once they’ve gotten ahold of it?” Anton rolls his eyes at her.

“I don’t know. I’m only a fucking _ scout.” _

Adrian tilts his head. “A scout here for a renowned, if escaped, forgemaster and a banshee that will never be born.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.” Anton throws him a greasy, bloodstained smile. It makes his lip curl. “From the sound of it I’d say she’s part of the way there already.” Another finger meets the same fate as the first three. This time it’s his pointer. “Would you stop fucking doing that!” he shouts at Trevor. He shrugs.

“Running out of fingers anyway.”

“What I mean to say,” Adrian continues, patience thinning at having been interrupted, “is that the _ how _ of it is irrelevant. _ Why _does Carmilla need a horde? Why would she need a banshee? What’s it all for?”

He can see the effort in Anton’s face as he tries not to respond, lips contorting as he attempts to keep them shut. The serum continues to work against him. The answer eventually claws its way out of his mouth. “She plans to take the whole mountain basin. To trap all the humans in the valley, from Styria to Braila. A pen for the livestock.”

The silence returns to them as the information sinks in. Trevor and Sypha look to Adrian, as though hoping he would have more to tell them, anything by way of explanation. He doesn’t. “That’s 800 miles of territory. There would be no way for them to hold it, not with the losses sustained at Braila. That’s why they need a horde.”

Sypha moves in closer, brandishing the flame trapped in her hand. “What else do you know?”

“Do you think they invite me to sit in on their war councils? Again, I’m just. A Fucking. Scout. They sent us here to gather intelligence, get the faerie, take the forgemaster if we could, and then bring them back. I don’t know anything else.”

“How many night creatures does she have?”

“Not enough. Maybe a hundred. Probably less than that by now. They’re not exactly his best work, either.”

Something catches Anton’s attention then. His gaze wanders toward the door, as though he were searching for something. His eyes widen suddenly. A giddy, crazed look fills them and for a moment Adrian suspects he means to try and escape.

Then, he starts to laugh. It is the same laugh that had rung through the castle’s great hall earlier that evening, when he’d seen Hector at the top of the stairs.

“Don’t know why you’d bother needling me for that particular detail, though. You could just ask the little shit himself.”

Not until then does he finally hear it. Adrian turns his head to face the door, ears straining for what he hopes is not there. A precious and devastatingly familiar rhythm he would recognize anywhere, far more readily than he would even the one in his own chest.

“Listen to that. Heart beating like a startled rabbit.”

Adrian lands a solid kick to the vampire’s knee. There’s enough force behind the blow to nearly splinter the wood of the chair, though the tendons and ligaments of Anton’s patella don’t fare half so well. He can feel them crunch beneath the heel of his boot, almost as loud as the bellowed _ “Fuck!” _that rings out in the dingy stone cell.

A few steps is all it takes for him to make it to the door, listening all the while for that living tempo behind the wood. He hadn’t noticed it before. He’d been too caught up in his questions, in trying to put together the pieces of all they’ve heard. He hadn’t heard the locks to the dungeons being turned, the footsteps down the stairs, or the shaky breaths that fill his ears now.

Adrian wrenches the cell door wide open upon the eavesdropper at the other side. Hector’s wide blue eyes greet him. Even though he’d been expecting them, it still chills him. Nearly so much as Anton’s sing-song call behind them.

“Hello, forgemaster! I was wondering if you would be joining us tonight—”

The ancient hinges of the door squeal as Adrian slams it shut. It doesn’t quite silence the taunting, but it does help to muffle him. The look Hector gives him is equal parts steely and wary, like he is expecting Adrian to admonish him and fully prepared to ignore every bit of it.

Adrian’s teeth grind. He’s not angry, and somewhere deep down he desperately hopes that Hector can recognize that, but he is _ exasperated. _He should have expected this. He should have been counting on it.

They say nothing to each other. He snatches out for one of Hector’s wrists, intending on hauling him back up to the ground floor if he has to. Adrian pulls him along, refusing to look him in the face. The sound of Trevor’s voice bleeds through the cell behind them, Sypha’s joining it as they continue to question their captive. He wants to shout at Hector. Wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, wants to weep, wants to know why he hadn’t just listened when Adrian had begged him to stay away.

“Let go of me.”

They barely make it a few feet from the door. Hector digs his heels into the stone floors. It forces Adrian to make a choice: to stop and let go, or to actually drag him out of the dungeons. Hector makes that choice for him when he yanks his hand from Adrian’s grip.

“I told you to stay upstairs.” He rounds on Hector, turns to face him so that he can see for himself the worry that Adrian is so adamantly trying to stifle. “Of all the times for you to be so bloody stubborn. Why did you come down? Why couldn’t you have just _ listened _to me?”

“I wanted to see him.”

“And now you have! Satisfied?” He again reaches for Hector’s fingers, wincing when he steps back to dodge him. “Where is Iri? She was supposed to—”

“I waited until she fell asleep. Don’t you dare drag her into this; she’s not my fucking keeper.”

“It’s a good thing too, because she’s failing spectacularly at it.”

“You have no right.” He crosses his arms over his stomach, looking startlingly vulnerable in the tinny light of the electric lamps. Suddenly, Adrian is reminded of the skeletal creature that had been delivered to his castle door so many months ago. Weakened and frightened and struggling his way through something so innate as breathing, and yet still refusing to die. That same quiet strength baffles him even now as Hector shrinks from him. “You have no right to keep me from this. From him.”

“The only thing I want to keep you from is anymore pain. I am trying to keep you safe.”

“I’m not safe though, am I? The fact that he’s even here in the first place proves that well enough.”

“How would putting you in the same room make it any better?” Adrian asks him. “He’s deranged. Unstable. A cornered man, and a vampire at that, is unpredictable at best. I can’t promise he won’t lash out. What if he were to get loose somehow?”

“You would protect me.”

“I am trying to protect you now,” he breathes. “For god’s sake, he could hurt you.”

_ “He has already hurt me!” _

For all the time they’ve known each other, for all they have shared and learned about one another, never before has Adrian seen Hector so very _ angry. _It is such a foreign and breathtaking contempt he finds in the familiar sight of his handsome face. Gone is the gentle countenance he knows so well, replaced instead by blue embers of rage smoldering in his eyes. It humbles him enough that he holds his tongue.

“Carmilla didn’t care how many of them raped me, or how many times.” Hector won’t look at him. He says these words to the floor, as though it were too much for him to confess this to Adrian’s face. “So long as they didn’t kill me and I was still able to stand and work her forge afterwards, it didn’t matter. In fact, I think she might have encouraged it. Probably thought it would help to… keep me compliant. As if starving and beating me weren’t enough.”

Adrian flinches at that. His hands curl into fists at his sides as he imagines all the things he would relish doing to Carmilla for what Hector is about to admit to him. “Hector,” he says, very softly. “You don’t have to—”

“I do, though, Adrian, because you do not understand.” He swallows thickly, and Adrian can feel the dread in it on the tip of his own tongue. “There were rules: they were not allowed to bite me, nor were they to leave marks on my face. Those were the only two, and _ that man,” _ he spits, like the words taste foul to say, “was the only one to ever break them. Until just a few minutes ago I didn’t even know his name.”

For a brief moment, the rage begins to waver in favor of a heartbreaking glimpse at the despair Adrian knows Hector had felt in Styria, nearly a year behind him but yet somehow still right at their heels. It is then that all of his indignant resolve begins to crumple, like a letter in a rainstorm. The urge to reach out again, to touch Hector, to offer him that small comfort rears its head; Adrian ignores it. Hector needs for him to listen, and so he will.

“It sounds stupid in the face of everything else, but those two conditions were all I had. They were the only boundaries I could hide behind, and they weren’t even mine. They were Carmilla’s. Somehow, that hurt nearly as much as anything else they did to me.”

“It isn’t stupid,” he tries to reassure him.

Tears begin to glisten in the depths of Hector’s eyes. He moves to hastily wipe them away, clearly frustrated. “I am so _ tired _ of crying,” he mutters. The bitter laugh that follows is completely devoid of mirth. “I am exhausted of being scared, and sick, and pathetic. I want my fucking life back, and I don’t mean my old work or that tiny, shitty house in Rhodes. I want to be able to go into the village with the rest of you. I want to lock a door without being terrified it’ll never open again. I want to comb my hair, to take a bath, to undress, to look into a mirror, to _ fuck _you without being forced to remember anyone else trying to touch me. Without… seeing it, on my skin.”

Adrian gives in. He takes a step closer, arm extended to grasp for the other man. Hector stops him with a palm flat to his chest. “Hector—”

“Listen to me. I am angry, Adrian, and until now it’s just been festering inside of me. Like a disease. Now I have the chance to to finally hold someone accountable, and if you take that from me tonight I will never forgive you.”

Anybody who had ever insinuated Hector is nothing but a guileless, tactless child was, in Adrian’s mind, no judge of character. His father included. It is an ultimatum Hector has given him, knowing all the while what his answer will be. He could either deny this of him, carving a rift between them that could potentially shatter everything they’ve built, or he could let him into the cell. Let him face for himself one of the devils that still chases him from his bed in the middle of the night. Let him have this.

The choice is simple.

Adrian gingerly touches Hector’s hand where it sits over his heart. He traces at the tendons beneath the skin, the lax indentations of his knuckles, pressing his fingers to fall into the spaces between Hector’s own like he has done countless times before. Blue eyes linger at the torn and bloodied shirt under his coat.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. It was only a scratch.” Adrian lifts the ruined shirt himself, revealing the newly knitted flesh underneath. “See? It has already healed.”

Hector nods resolutely. “Good,” he whispers. “Good. I don’t know how I can possibly hate someone any more, but…The fact that he _ touched _you makes me…”

“Fine,” Adrian acquiesces. “If it is what you need then… I won’t stop you.” He says it somberly. Hector looks at him then, his face so timidly eager even as the tears still shine at the corners of his eyes. “You have half an hour. You’re to stand behind me the whole time, near the door, and at the first sign of danger you are to _ leave. _Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t control what he says to you. It may be something you don’t want the rest of us to hear.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do, Hector.” He squeezes at the hand under his. The fear that thrums through the agitated nerves is almost palpable, even as Hector tries to hide it from him. “It’s all right. No one will think any less of you for it.”

“Let’s just go. Please.”

There is so much more he wants to say, but they have precious little time and so much to confront. Hector does his best to again wipe away any trace of tears from his face, and it pains Adrian to know that Anton will more than likely be able to smell them anyway. The thought of him reveling in Hector’s anguish turns his stomach as surely as it boils his blood, but this is so, so much bigger than one monstrous and vicious man’s final joys.

The cell door opens again and Hector finally lets go of Adrian’s hand. The two of them step into the room. Shock clouds the faces of its occupants as Hector follows him inside.

Trevor narrows his eyes pointedly at them. He spares Hector a wary glance before addressing Adrian. “You don’t really need me to tell you that this is a shitty idea, do you?”

“Leave it, Trevor.” The severity in Sypha’s voice surprises them both. 

Trevor bristles. “He shouldn’t be here. At the very least he’ll be a distraction, at worst a liability. You’re giving him,” he gestures to Anton, “exactly what he wants.”

“I said _ leave _it,” she snaps at him, and the tone she uses is a warning Adrian knows Trevor will heed every time. He does leave it, then, though he lets his disapproval be known to them with a heated scoff.

The focus in Anton’s eyes as they land upon Hector in the gloom makes Adrian physically ill. His lips spread in a twisted contortion of glee. Through the amputated limb, the crushed fingers, the mangled knee, he continues to leer like a rabid dog. Every instinct tells Adrian to rip it from his face. He wants to claw the bastard’s eyes from his head and splinter his ribs apart to get to his lungs before they can utter a single word to Hector, but by some miracle he stays his hand. His self-control nearly falters, though, the instant he opens his wretched mouth.

“Hello again, forgemaster.”

To his credit, Hector doesn’t so much as flinch. Adrian can’t help but feel a feeble swell of pride at that, though trepidation grips him as Hector steps further into the room. He says nothing. He just looks, eyes roaming the dirtied and grisly state of their captive from where he’s been restrained. At the lack of response, Anton continues.

“You’re looking well. Less bony. I miss the collar, though.”

Hector glares at him.

“Have to say, when word got out you’d escaped we were all _ so _disappointed. Carmilla sent Miron after you and when he didn’t come back, some of us were curious.”

“Who is Miron?” Trevor asks, but he gets no clear answer as Anton continues to prattle on.

“Half of us expected him to run off with you, either to fuck you to death or rip you to pieces himself. Even started a pool.” He sniffs. “Looks like I’ve lost some money.”

“That’s disgusting,” Sypha hisses.

“Miron is dead.” Hector’s voice is soft. Somber, almost. “He and the rest of the hunting party she sent with him. My condolences to your coin purse.”

“I’ll bet it was that redheaded pixie, wasn’t it?”

Hector nods. “It was. She gouged his eyes out with an arrowhead and let the dawn have him. There was nothing left but ash.”

“Just as well. He was a fool. Clever when he needed to be, I suppose, but when his temper took him he lost all sense.”

“Yes, I was well acquainted with his _ temper.” _

“Oh, that you were. Some of the other guards were convinced Carmilla and her sisters would be out of a forgemaster after you hit him with that hammer. Jesus, he whinged about that for days.” Anton chuckles. It makes Adrian’s skin crawl. “She got my friend Boris, too, your pixie friend. Gutted him like a pig after he shot the little one. You remember Boris, don’t you? Great, tall fellow? No hair? Ring a bell?”

All the blood drains from Hector’s face. Adrian watches as he visibly cringes, curling in on himself where he stands. His arms cross over his abdomen as though to try and hide the shudder that rips through him. It chills Adrian to think of what sort of memory could inspire such a reaction at the mere mention of a name.

“Thought you would!” Anton’s voice rings out in a sick rendition of triumph. He turns his head to Adrian, fixes him with his beady stare. “You see, Boris was rather fond of him. He was a big bloke, too. We were always able to tell whenever he stopped by the forge; you could hear the screaming from two floors up. He got so many visitors, though, our forgemaster, that I was worried he’d have forgotten—”

That costs him his remaining intact fingers. Trevor breaks the last two in one swift motion, barely moved by the resulting bark of pain that erupts from the vampire in the chair.

It is the serum, Adrian knows, that inspires him to run his mouth so heedlessly. It had been meant to draw the truth out of him, to loosen his tongue and safeguard them from deception. Guilt pools behind his teeth to know that, while it had succeeded, it has proven to work far too well.

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Carmilla’s _ sisters,” _he says, pointedly sidestepping the vile subject at hand. “What do you mean by that? Who are they?”

“What, Dracula’s pretty _ dhampir _ son was kept out of the loop? Can’t say I blame him for that. I’d have staked myself out of humiliation were I in his place.”

Trevor again grabs him by the hair. He punctuates it with a solid punch to Anton’s cheek that sends blood flying out the side of his mouth. “Answer the fucking question.”

“There’s four of them,” he gasps, reeling from the blow to his face. “They rule Styria as equals. Sisters. Striga heads the military forces while Morana deals in finances and secrets. Lenore specializes in diplomacy. Carmilla is just the driving force behind it all. She’s the spark.”

“Alucard, do you recognize any of those names?”

“No. I was not raised at court. I met Carmilla once before at a forum, but the others are unfamiliar to me. It’s possible they were colluding in secret, without my father’s knowledge.”

“They sent us… to bargain for him. If we were caught.”

Adrian’s head whips around to face him. He takes a step towards the chair. One of his boots rises to rest over the ruined mess of Anton’s crushed kneecap, pinning it to the seat of the chair. The scout grunts in pain. He bares his teeth at Adrian, choking on a scream when he presses harder. Adrian narrows his eyes. “What do you mean bargain?”

“For the forgemaster they would offer you a seat at their table. To rule with them in Styria as an equal and leave this backwater shithole for the crows.”

“You must think me an idiot to believe that. Carmilla and her sisters, welcoming a _dhampir_ into their ranks? A half-breed, as you so elegantly put it?” He scoffs. “If they mean to offer _me_ a place at their table, that tells me they’re grasping at straws. They don’t have the means or the bodies to come for Hector themselves, so they would have me deliver him to their doorstep. Even if they intend on deceiving me.”

Anton smirks. “I’m not lying.”

He might be unable to lie, but Adrian knows it could never be so simple or straightforward as that. While they want Hector for themselves, he doubts they’d ever let him anywhere near their plans or their castle. There must be something they’ve kept from their scout. Not that he would ever give up his father’s castle, much less _ Hector _for it. “You have nothing to offer me,” he growls. 

He can hear the emotional draw of breath from Hector at his back even through Anton’s cursing.

“What, for _ him?” _Anton spits at the floor, blood and saliva painting his mouth a disgusting, patchy pink. “It’s not as though you’d never see him again. Hell, I’ll bet they’d even let you have him all to yourself.”

The heel of Adrian’s boot grinds into splintered cartilage. The resulting shout is music to his ears. “You have. _ Nothing. _To offer me.”

“Like he has anything to give you that hasn’t been bought by someone else for a couple of coins!”

“What does that mean?” Hector asks. His voice trembles, though instead of fear it is with a deep-seated, quiet rage. Sypha places her small hand at his shoulder. He hardly seems to notice. “There was no coin. I never saw any coin.”

“Of course you didn’t, worm. Did you think anyone was going to pay _you _for a tumble?” He laughs again, the cruel din reverberating against the stone walls and floors until it echoes in Adrian’s ears. He doesn’t think he’s ever hated a sound more. “They paid Miron, you twat. Your handler.”

Hector shakes his head. “No.” He looks desperately at Adrian. “He’s lying,” he murmurs, and it sounds as though he is more trying to convince himself than he is anyone else in the room. The despair that cracks the words in his lungs aches to listen to. “He’s _ lying.” _

He does not have the strength to tell Hector that Anton cannot be lying.

“You should know,” he says, eyes sliding in Adrian’s direction, “he was very popular with the guards. All we had to do was flash Miron a bit of silver and that would get us an hour or two with Carmilla’s pet whore. If he wasn’t already fucking him himself, that is. Reminds me, half-breed, do you need any tips?”

Hector’s fingers clench in the cotton of his shirt. “Shut up.”

“He’s best on his knees. Pull him by the hair and he’ll shriek like a cat in heat. I’ll warn you though, he’s a bleeder—”

Sypha lunges forward, the fire in her fist shifting to white frost. She holds it dangerously close to Anton’s face, close enough for ice crystals to crawl over the side of his jaw. Her lips are curled back over her teeth, her eyes wide in her animosity. “Not another word, or I will freeze your tongue in your mouth.”

Trevor grabs at her wrist to pull her back before Anton has the foresight to try for a bite. “Don’t.”

“How dare you?” she hisses. “His name is Hector, not ‘forgemaster,’ and he is my friend. Call him a whore again and it will be the last word you ever say.”

Amidst her furious threats and Trevor’s attempts to calm her, Adrian looks to Hector. There on his face, plain as day, is _ shame. _He hides his eyes from them all in favor of glancing at the wall. It guts him. Adrian’s heart stutters in his breast to see it, heavy in the miserable draw of Hector’s lips. It burns him because this shame is not Hector’s to bear. It lies at the feet of the monster strapped to the chair, at whoever Miron was, at Carmilla in her castle and anyone else complicit in the depravity they’ve forced upon this man. Grief blisters the back of his throat as he watches Hector blink away what he knows to be the beginnings of tears.

“That’s enough.”

Adrian turns his back on the spectacle before them, placing himself deliberately between Hector and everyone else in the room. It earns him the detached blue of his gaze. When Adrian gently touches his elbow to coax him towards the door it looks as though Hector means to argue. His brow furrows stubbornly, lips parting to speak, though no words seem to come.

“Go and wake Iri,” Adrian tells him. “We will be done here shortly and then I will come to find you.”

“Yes, run along, Hector,” Anton calls to them. “Do as you’re told. Be a good boy.”

Whatever those two words awaken in Hector, it is not something Adrian has ever seen before. Suddenly every trace of shame, of the timid anguish that had sunken its claws into him is lifted in the wake of sheer, unflinching fury. A heated breath disperses in his lungs. Adrian feels the tension coiling in his muscles before he lunges, but he is not quick enough to hold him back.

Hector pushes past him to bolt for the table near the interrogation chair, where the earlier discarded needle still sits. He seizes one of the instruments there, a long and deadly looking knife. Adrian scrambles to get to him before he can actually reach Anton. He grabs for the hand wielding the knife, holding him by the wrist. It would be nothing for him to simply snatch it back, to drag Hector out and slam the door on him, but it feels wrong to take the choice from him.

“How much?!” Hector yells at Anton. The vampire laughs at him. “How much did I earn him? How much did all of you pay him so you could rape me?!”

“Hector, give me the knife.” Adrian tries to keep his voice calm, but Anton is all too eager to answer.

“Last I heard it was about ten ducats!” He lurches forward in the chair, the leather straps keeping him bound straining. Trevor plants his hands over his shoulders to pull him back. “Were you expecting more? Sorry to disappoint, but yours wasn’t exactly the most luxurious bed to be had!”

“The _ knife, _Hector!”

“Let me go!”

Adrian’s fingers finally close around the pommel. Hector releases it with a frustrated cry and Adrian flings it to the other side of the room.

Everything that happens afterwards is a blur. Rapidly sensing that his usefulness to them is depleting with each passing second, Anton lashes out. In a last ditch attempt to prolong what little of his wretched life is left to him, he pitches himself backwards hard enough to bash Trevor in the face. He does it so quickly that it’s more than enough to catch the hunter off guard. He goes down like a boulder down a hill, the smell of blood tainting the air.

Sypha tries to freeze him into place but the blast of ice she throws does not quite hit her target. It only succeeds in freezing the leather straps solid, and when Anton pulls against them they shatter. She is sent flying into the wall with one swipe of his arm.

There is just enough time after Adrian realizes he is next in the order of assault for him to shove Hector to the side before he finds himself pinned to the ground. His sword falls loose from his hip and clatters against the stone. His head meets the floor at the same time, hard enough that it disorients him for a split second.

Anton climbs over him. The consecrated silver wire that still binds him sears into every inch of exposed flesh it touches. Adrian groans. Mangled fingers close around his throat and when he looks up he is met with dark, beady eyes.

It would have taken him no time at all to recover, even with the blessing of the silver burning into his skin. Before he has the chance, the singing of steel as it is pulled from its sheath rings all around them. Above him, Anton barely has the chance to tilt his head towards the sound, and then the glimmering tip of Adrian’s sword bursts through his chest.

The shock that spreads over Anton’s face as he dies must mirror his own. The familiar glint of the steel is dulled with a wash of red so deep it is nearly black. There is a brief moment of hushed understanding as they stare at each other, both too stunned to move, and then Anton slumps over him. Blood pours from his mouth as the sword is pulled back through him. It leaves a neatly carved hole where Adrian knows his skewered heart lies.

He reacts just in time to fling the scout’s corpse off of him before it bursts into flames. His last dying wails fill the space around them as he burns, and in seconds there is nothing left amidst the unscathed silver wires save for a foul pile of ash and the remains of the Styrian leathers.

In the center of the room, Hector kneels with the hilt of Adrian’s sword clutched in both his hands. His chest heaves, panting as it sinks in what he has just done. He looks frantically at Adrian in the aftermath. The sword again hits the floor with a metallic _ clang. _

“I’m sorry.” His eyes dart between Adrian and what is left of Anton. “I thought… I thought he was going to hurt you. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s all right.”

“Adrian.”

Near the wall, Sypha groans in pain, dizzy but alive, while Trevor curses as he tries to feel around what is most likely a broken nose. Adrian clambers towards Hector, takes his hands in his own and squeezes them tight. They tremble between his fingers.

“It’s all right,” he says again. Hector watches his lips as he speaks. “Everything is going to be all right.”

* * *

His hands will not stop shaking.

A fire blazes in the hearth of his bedroom, but everything still feels so _ cold. _Despite the brandy Adrian has given him to drink, the warm, clean clothes he’s put on to sleep in, there is still a pronounced chill making itself at home underneath his skin. No matter how much he shivers Hector cannot keep it at bay.

Adrian has pulled out his bag. It sits open on Hector’s bed as he rifles through it. “I’m giving you something to help you sleep,” he tells him, pulling out a labeled bottle. He sets it on the bedside table.

Hector shakes his head. “I don’t want—”

“Please don’t argue with me.” He sounds so tired as he says it. Almost as tired as Hector himself feels. “You need to sleep. You haven’t slept properly in weeks, and frankly I’m amazed you haven’t yet fallen ill for it.”

Hector says nothing in response. He doesn’t argue. When Adrian extends to him the measured dose of sleeping aid, he simply swallows it down with the rest of the brandy. The overly sweet flavor of it makes him grimace.

It is strange, he thinks. When he’d set fire to his childhood home with his mother and father inside, he hadn’t stayed long enough to deal with the consequences. He had run. As fast and as far as he could on a child’s legs, with nothing save for the clothes on his back and whatever coins he had been able to pilfer from his parents’ savings. And his animals. He had been too small to comprehend exactly what it was he’d done, but there had been no one to beat him anymore, no one to scream how much they hated him, no one to kill his pets. No one left to call him an abomination. Not until he was much older and forced to learn that there were monsters out in the world far worse than parents who did not love him.

Now, as he relives the sound of steel piercing through flesh and bone, the weight of the sword in his palms and the give of Anton’s heart against it, Hector thinks he may be lost to the sheer _ satisfaction _ it had given him. Vengeance had not been what drove him in that moment; it had been pure panic at the sight of Anton looming over Adrian as he’d tried to crush his broken fingers around his throat. He doesn’t know if Anton would have been able to kill him. In hindsight, it wasn’t likely. That hadn’t mattered, though, when the sword had found its way into his hands.

He doesn’t regret it for a second.

“I suppose you have questions.”

Adrian’s head lifts from where he’d been looking into his bag. “About what?”

“The things he said. Who Miron is, how many night creatures I forged for them.”

“Hector—”

“Miron was the guard responsible for _ dealing _with me. He answered directly to Carmilla. He would beat me until I blacked out, deny me my meals to starve me, and…” He stops himself. “Well, you heard the rest. Anton was right, by the way: the creatures I made for them were pitiful and very few, nothing like the ones I gave your father. And if Carmilla had any sisters, I never met them—”

“I don’t care about any of that.”

Adrian closes his bag. It falls to the floor. The mattress dips below Adrian’s weight as he moves to sit next to him. He reaches for Hector’s still trembling fingers, clasping them within his own. His hands are warm.

“You don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to. Ever. I… I am _ so _ sorry.”

Hector leans into him. Adrian’s lips find his forehead, his thumb drawing a tender pattern over the pulse in his wrist. It makes him sigh. Hector tilts his head, searching for the sweet give of Adrian’s mouth to ask for a proper kiss.

The adrenaline hasn’t quite left him yet. That is what he thinks gives him the courage to sweep his tongue past Adrian’s lips. It’s a peculiar sort of desperation that swells to life with the timid noise that it earns him, equal parts surprise and confusion. Hector pulls his hands from Adrian’s to cradle his face between them. He sinks his teeth delicately into Adiran’s bottom lip, and it provides enough of a distraction for him to slowly crawl into Adrian’s lap.

Adrian breaks the kiss. “What are you—”

“I want you to fuck me.”

It shocks him as much as it does Adrian, even more so to know that it is _ true. _It terrifies him to think it, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if it hurts. He would welcome the pain if it meant he could have it from a man he has asked for rather than one he can’t escape. If he could have Adrian. He wants to replace every hateful memory that’s been dragged up through the mire of his past with Adrian. He wants to forget.

“Hector, wait.”

“Please.” He practically begs it, breathes the word into Adrian’s mouth. His fingers trail down his scarred chest, sliding up under his clothes to touch him. Adrian shudders against him. Hector presses closer, further into his lap as he reaches for the front of his trousers.

His hands won’t stop fucking _ shaking. _

“Stop.”

Hector stops.

“... What?”

Adrian grabs for his wrists, holds them up and away from his body. He looks straight into Hector’s eyes. “We’re not going to do this. Not now.”

“Why not?” he snaps. He searches Adrian’s expression for answers but he is indecipherable. He looks distraught. Panic begins to creep into the frenzied unease coursing through his nerves. “I _ want _ you to.”

“No, Hector.”

He tears himself from Adrian’s grasp. He pulls away, the awful realization creeping into his subconscious like a cancer. Tears begin to well at the corners of his eyes, blurring the sight of Adrian in front of him. “You don’t want me anymore,” he accuses him. He watches Adrian’s face fall. “You don’t want me anymore. Not now that you know.”

“That is _ not _ true.”

“Yes it is!” he says. The tears break over his cheeks, hot, saline streaks that drip past his lips. “This is part of why I never told you anything, because I knew, I _ knew _ that if you learned you would look at me differently. That you’d think I was disgusting.”

“That’s not true.” Adrian sweeps his hair away from his dampened cheek, and Hector very nearly leans into his palm, aching for the familiar comfort of Adrian’s hands on him. “You don’t believe that. Please don’t do this, Hector, please.”

“Then why say no?”

“Because you are not well!” He wipes away the freshest of his tears. “I cannot fathom how you can be okay after hearing what that man spewed at you. I saw just how badly it hurt you.”

“Believe me, I have endured much worse from the likes of them.”

“I know you have. I _ hate _ it. I would take it from you if I could.”

“I am asking you to take it from me now!”

“And if I am going to touch you, I want it to be because it would make you happy, not simply because you are tired of being sad. It won’t fix anything, I promise you.”

Something crests inside of him, froths in his lungs and the hollow chambers of his heart until it feels as though it will pour out of him. It hurts. It hurts so much more than he can take. Hector holds his palms over his mouth to try and keep it all within him. A wretched sound leaves him, a wounded, wordless cry that slips between his fingers.

_ If I am a whore, then you alone owe me a _fortune.

“Ten ducats!” he whimpers. “Ten fucking ducats, Adrian.” Hector bites back what feels like a storm growing in his throat. It roars like it’s trying to tear him apart from the inside. He sees Adrian’s lips thin, his chin tight as he tries to soothe away the agony in Hector’s voice. “Ten ducats. You can’t even buy a horse for that. That’s what I’m worth.”

“No, it isn’t.” Adrian folds him into his arms. They cross securely over his spine, crushing him close. “You are worth everything to me.” Hector buries his face into the slope of his neck, quaking with the effort it takes to keep himself together. He sobs when a hand comes to rest gently at the back of his head. “I love you,” Adrian says to him, voice wet with his own tears. “I love you so much. Oh, god, I’m so sorry.”

Later, after he has wept himself into exhaustion and the medicine has had the time to leak into his blood, Adrian helps him into his sheets. Hector gives him little choice but to crawl in beside him as he utterly refuses to let go, clinging to him anywhere he can grab hold of. His hands, his clothes, even his hair in parts. Just as he begins to slip away beneath the swirling black cauldron of chemically aided sleep, the grey light of dawn starts to filter in through the cracks in his curtains.

It is, as always, a relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!!! Please please please remember to leave a comment, I'm dying to know what you all think of this chapter!!!


	28. Part XXVIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this chapter was supposed to be longer but it felt like it was dragging so I split it :((( I really hope you like it though!!!!
> 
> By the way, if you like modern AU's I have one in progress! You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616130/chapters/56674912) if you want to read it!
> 
> Thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

Hector does not remember dreaming.

He knows that he does dream. Upon waking, there is a distant sort of memory that flees from the darker, foggier corners of his mind. It does not linger long enough for him to grab hold of, slipping idly through his fingers like so many ribbons of grey and washed out silk. The sleeping medication and weeks’ worth of sleep deprivation help to keep it shrouded in obscurity, but the melancholy ache he finds in its place feels tender to the touch. Almost like a bruise he cannot seem to leave alone.

Hector opens his eyes and finds himself on the verge of tears, wrought with a phantom sadness he hardly understands but knows all too well. But there are no tears. There is only the peculiar emptiness sitting below his heart, beating in time with the pulse of his blood and the air in his lungs.

It does not feel like one of his nightmares. There is no urge to run, to flee, to extract himself from the haven of Adrian’s arms. No, not a nightmare. Just a sad dream he cannot remember. Oddly enough, there is relief to be found in that.

Adrian always wakes before he does, somehow. Hector supposes it has something to do with the hyper awareness that comes with the darker half of his ancestry; it’s possible he simply _ hears _ it when Hector wakes. The shift in his breathing and his heartbeat just before he comes to. The mystery of it is lost on him in exchange for the comfort he takes in the gentle pressure of lips at his forehead, the warmth of golden eyes as they look at him.

The afternoon sunlight paints them in the frigid glare of early autumn. Hector hides from it. He smothers his face into the shelter of Adrian’s collar, takes in the scent of his hair and the heat of his body like they might cure him. He is unsure of what. It feels unimportant next to the sensation of being pulled close and _ held _ like this. Like he is something precious and worth protecting. Worth loving.

Hector has never quite believed in God. Not in the way his mother and father had, the way the Belmonts did, the way most people trying to make sense of the world do. Every sermon he’d been forced to sit through as a child in a church felt too much like stories. He believes in hell well enough. It was a fundamental component of a forgemaster’s work. The souls he had once forged into corpses had been plucked from somewhere, and he could think of no word better to describe the collar Carmilla had clapped around his neck.

This, though: the love that grips him, soothes him, fortifies him each time Adrian’s lashes flutter against his skin, each time his chest rises and falls beneath Hector’s hands, each time Hector reaches for him and he is simply _ there. _Surely this is as close to knowing God any one person could ever come.

For the longest time, they say nothing to each other. Adrian simply stays close, the solid weight of him like an anchor. Hector can feel a hand underneath his shirt, kneading absentmindedly into the divots between his vertebrae. It climbs to rest beneath his lax scapulae. Adrian spreads his fingers out against the warm skin there. Perhaps, Hector thinks, if he lies very still, he could make out the patterns of each individual fingerprint. Memorize them until he is able to recognize Adrian by the feel of his hands alone. He thinks he could probably do it regardless.

The rain had stopped at some point. He doesn’t know when. Dawn had been upon them when he had finally managed to drift off to sleep, and it must be nearly noon now. The daylight peering through the cracks in his curtains is rich and golden. It’s too easy to imagine the chill creeping in with the patches of sun crawling over the floorboards, closer and closer to his bed with each passing moment. Hector retreats further into the comfort of his quilts and his pillows and the man in his arms, determined that the cold will not find him here.

“Did you sleep?” Adrian asks him, though Hector is certain he already knows the answer. He responds with a quiet nod, aware Adrian can feel it where he is tucked against him. “Any nightmares?”

“No. Not that I can remember.”

“Good.” The word sounds difficult with emotion. “Good.”

A voice reaches them from somewhere in the hallway. Sypha calling Adrian’s name. Hector cannot make out what it is she says from here, but he knows Adrian does. The quiet around them ruptures at the sound of it. The arms around him tighten. Adrian’s gaze searches his face, torn with the need to go to her and his reluctance to leave.

“You should go,” Hector tells him. He smiles faintly in a weak effort to reassure him.

“I don’t want to leave you.” His voice is small. Honest. It tugs at Hector’s heartstrings.

“I’ll be all right, Adrian. I promise.”

His pale thumb grazes over Hector’s cheekbone. The beautiful line of his mouth tightens with concern Hector wishes he could ease away. Adrian leans in to press their lips together. The kiss sates some wayward ache in him that Hector had not fully acknowledged until it threatens to overwhelm him. It is a gentle, chaste thing, indulgent and subtle in a way he’s only ever known in moments like this, only ever with Adrian. He returns the kiss slowly, trying to prolong it for however many more precious seconds they have.

“I love you,” Adrian whispers to him. Hector watches his lips as he says it. He kisses him again. “I’ll come back as soon as I can. We can stay here all day, if you like. I’ll bring you tea, your books, anything you want. We don’t have to leave this bed—”

Hector lifts two fingers to Adrian’s lower lip to hush him. Leans in to fit his mouth into the corner of Adrian’s. Their noses brush. He feels it when Adrian takes a deep breath, breathes Hector in before letting it go in a wistful sigh. “I love you too.”

It earns him one more kiss. He tastes in it just how badly Adrian hates to leave him, just how desperately he yearns to stay. He’ll not deny the loss that plagues him as he sees him pull away to climb out of the bed. Like a bandage being ripped from a wound far too prematurely, yet he has no choice but to grin and bear it.

After he leaves the room, Hector hears Adrian knock on the girls’ door to check in on Aria. He stays there for a long time, and Hector can hear the murmur of their voices. He tries not to think about what they’re discussing, knowing it pertains to him and what occurred the night before, and when Adrian leaves to search for Sypha he catches one last glimpse of him through the crack in the door.

The walls suddenly seem to shrink around him as the events that had transpired in the dungeons come rushing back. All at once a barrage of anxious discord begins to engulf him from every angle. The hideous ring of Anton’s laughter haunts his ears, the dank, hopeless air of the cell chipping away at his resolve. The reminder of just exactly what it is he was worth to Carmilla’s men will not leave him. _ Ten ducats, _he thinks to himself. Ten ducats for his body. Ten ducats for his dignity. Ten ducats for pieces of his soul he will never get back, ripped from his shaking hands and his clenched teeth. Money he’ll never see the value of. Not for as long as he lives.

None of Anton’s blood had ever actually touched him. Adrian’s sword had been long enough to spare him the stains, though Hector cannot help but feel like his hands are washed sticky and black. He does _ not _ regret killing him; he never will. Yet the itch in his nerves will not abate. The bite of his own nails digging into his forearms feels dulled somehow, and it frightens him. He wants to sink them in further, strip the skin from the bone until he can see the white beneath the red.

He has half a mind to call for Adrian, beg him to come back to bed and not to leave, nevermind what he said earlier. A peculiar kind of rage froths in his veins and he feels helpless to it. Hector wonders if it will swallow him up. Gorge itself on the fear and the shame and the grief he could call old friends by now. Eat away at the darkness they have planted inside him until there is simply nothing left.

There is a knock at his door. Iri peers calmly at him from the hallway, knuckles raised to the old wood. She, too, is still dressed in the clothes she’d slept in. Her hair hangs in frizzy curls around her shoulders.

“May I come in?”

The storm roaring inside him dies down by the smallest bit. Hector nods listlessly against his pillow.

Her footsteps are silent as she crosses the distance to his bed, her bare feet muffled against the rug. The mattress barely shifts beneath her slight weight when she clambers to sit beside him, her legs folded underneath her. His hand lies close to her knee, palm up and open to the ceiling.

All of the tension seems to rush away when Iri touches him. The delicate pressure of her fingertip skating over his eyelids and down to his temple feels deliberate, like she knows exactly what it is she is doing. Hector lets go of air he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding and with it flees the frenzy that had been building within him. The anger is still there, mingled clumsily with everything else roiling in his chest, but with each pass of her fingers through his hair it starts to feel almost bearable.

Iri lifts his head to rest upon her uninjured thigh. He simply goes, eyes falling closed as the warmth of her radiates against his cheek. The strange limbo he’d known upon waking, hovering between tears and despondency, finds him again.

“Did Adrian tell you?”

She continues to smooth back the limp hair at his nape. Hector blinks as he waits for her to speak, his lashes catching against the soft cotton of her breeches. “He told me the scout was dead, and of how he died.” She pauses for a moment, as though giving him the space to say something. He does not. “He also told me it was not easy for you.”

He wants to laugh at that. As though anything in recent days has been easy for him. He misses when every thought, every step did not come with a learned sense of dread.

“I never meant to kill him,” he confesses. It burns him to say it. Iri’s fingers halt in his hair. “I’m not sorry I did do it. I don’t regret it for a _ second, _ but I never…” His empty hand flexes around nothing, as though grasping for the memory of Adrian’s sword in its grip. “He had Adrian and I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t even think about it. After everything he did to me—everything _ they _ did to me—I would have just walked away, but the moment he touched Adrian, I just. I could not bear it.”

“Hector, you need not explain yourself. Not to me or anyone else.”

“I… I know. And yet I cannot help but try and make sense of it all.”

“Perhaps there is simply no sense to it.” She drags the backs of her knuckles over his jaw, neatly trimmed nails like glass against his skin. “You love Adrian. Of course you would try to protect him. He would do the same for you.”

“I know.” He does. He knows it as surely as he knows his own name. Adrian has protected him from more than he could ever hope to repay him for, still protects him from within the walls of his castle and the circle of his arms. He protects Hector from more than he will ever understand. At once his words from the night before come to mind. The ugly accusations born of his own insecurities he’d tried to project on the man he loved. He winces with the guilt and shame that fills him. “I know.”

She returns to carding through his hair, delicately navigating the tiny tangles and snags that had accumulated as he’d slept, careful not to pull. A thought strikes him. Hector can feel the bitter words welling in his throat, and before he can hold them back they are gone from his mouth.

“They used to pay him, to fuck me.” The trembling from the night before returns to his hands. He clenches them into fists against the sheets. “Did Adrian tell you that?”

Her brows furrow in a deep scowl. “No, he did not.”

“Miron would… _ charge _ them before he let them into the forge. Anton, the scout, said for a couple of silver.” _ Ten ducats, _he reminds himself. The amount keeps racing through his head, a mantra he wishes he could deafen himself to. Ten ducats. Ten ducats. Ten ducats. “Y-you remember Miron?” he asks, tongue stumbling with the words as the rage rattles through his skull. “The night you came to find me, he was there—”

“Aye, _ mo chara,” _she replies gravely. “I remember. He died that night on the road.”

“I can’t put it from my mind that there was a price for what I suffered, and that I never saw _ any _of it. Not a single fucking coin. I never will.”

“There will always be monsters who are quick to demand the value of what they were never entitled to.” Iri grabs for one of his shaking hands. She lowers her head, bends until her forehead meets Hector’s own, her hair a thick, red curtain around the two of them. When she speaks, the sorrow cracks in her voice. “Oh, my love. _ Tá brón an domhain orm.” _

“How am I supposed to stomach this?” he begs her. Again, that same panic from before screeches in his chest. His heart begins to race. “They are dead, and yet I still hate them so much. What am I to do with all of this anger when the ones who left me with it aren’t even here anymore?”

“I wish I had an answer for you.”

The hem of her nightshirt snares itself around one of his fingers. Suddenly he remembers, in perfect clarity, the image of the scars at her back. Vicious and deep against her skin in the morning light, all that remained of her amputated wings. Hector remembers the steely resolve in her eyes when she’d caught him looking. “How do _ you _cope with it?”

The question catches her off guard. There is a vulnerability to her that feels unfamiliar, a hesitation he would never have thought her capable of. For a moment Hector half expects her to recoil from him, but she does not. She simply looks very, very sad. 

“Not so well, I am afraid. I, too, still carry much of that anger, but some days it is easier to swallow down than others. It is like…” She tilts her head in thought. “Like a hand in front of your face.” She demonstrates with her fingers fanned out in front of her, palm obscuring her expression. “At times it feels like it is all I can see, and then there are times when I can simply move it out of the way.” With that, the hand is gone to the side to reveal her eyes again. “It is still there, but not holding me back. It took several years to understand, but the days where I am blinded feel further apart, and the days where I can see easier to reach for.”

“And in the meantime?”

“I had my sister. I had my bow. On occasion, I had my mother.” There is a strange quirk that possesses her mouth as she says the word _ mother. _Like the narrative was hardly that simple. “This may not be what you will want to hear but… time truly is a capable healer. One day the knowledge that they are dead will be a comfort to you rather than a frustration.”

_ Carmilla is not dead. _That fact sits low in his throat, pooling underneath his tongue like the urge to vomit. Carmilla and her sisters still live, miles and miles away in their castle. Carmilla, who never had to pay before she put her hands on him. Carmilla who, if what Adrian posits is true, is at her wit’s end in her attempts to drag him back from the grave he had escaped.

Hector draws in a shaky breath. It rattles in his lungs. “Iri, I am _ tired.” _

“Then you may rest,” she murmurs to him. “You have earned it. We will look after you.”

Despite the anxiety shrieking from within him, despite the looming specters of Carmilla and her sisters, Hector believes her. He trusts her to hold that to truth. It is a funny thing, having lived so much of his life with only himself to depend upon, to find such blind contentment in the promise that someone else will be there.

Iri’s touch gentles over his brow. He can feel it as she traces patterns between the freckles across his nose and cheeks. Hector sighs, long and soft. An echo of the fall wind rustling through the tree limbs outside, shaking still-green leaves on the verge of change.

It feels a little bit like hope, though he dares not name it as such.

Silent seconds tick by. When Iri begins to hum to him, a rendition of the song she’d sung to Aria the night before, Hector lets his eyes close. He drifts with the airy rise and fall of her voice over the notes. Not quite sleeping but withdrawn in this liminal space he has found within the parameters of his bed, blustery autumn kept firmly at bay even while the sunlight seeps through to warm them from the outside. It lends him a welcome solace. A timid peace.

Peace that begins to fluctuate around his ears, ripples in an otherwise glassy pond.

Iri lifts her head. She tilts her chin towards the door, ear poised as if she were listening for something. Hector holds his breath in an attempt to hear. A faint but steady resonance that almost feels familiar, so muted he can barely make it out. He watches as Iri leans over to open the drawer of his bedside table, realization dawning on him as she pulls out the source of the noise.

In her palm sits the tiny river stone from Aria’s bag. Free of the drawer, the noise is much more apparent. Hector can feel it reverberate along his skin as acutely as he does in his eardrums.

“Where did you get this?” Iri asks him.

“In Aria’s satchel,” he admits. A timid remorse colors his words. “I kept it on a whim. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I shouldn’t have.”

“Do you know what this is?” He shakes his head in. Iri turns the stone over in her palm. “It is a feystone. They can detect Fae magics, a bit like a dowsing rod. It was probably reacting to my voice.”

“How can you tell it has found any magic?” He hesitantly reaches out to take the stone, curious, and Iri places it in his hand.

It begins to glow.

Iri blinks. The ghostly teal glare illuminates her face, casting her in blue shadow. “It gives off light.”

“The way it is doing now?”

“You can see it?”

“... Yes,” Hector says nervously. “Am I not supposed to?”

“The crystal we gave you before we left, does it do the same?”

“It does.”

She brings his hand closer to get another look at the stone. It continues to shine its soft, ghoulish light. Hector sees it glitter in the vast green of her mirrored irises. “Humans cannot typically sense Fae magic. Much of it is invisible to them. That is why you hear of people finding themselves trapped in faerie circles, or becoming lost in our forests. They simply don’t know the spell is there until it is upon them.”

“So what does this mean? Why does it react to my touch, and why can I see it?”

The slant of her frown purses in thought. “I am not sure.” She looks at him then, her eyes delving into his own, almost as though she were looking for something. Hector fidgets under her gaze. “How odd.”

“I… feel as though I should be worried.”

“Do not be.” With a shrug of her shoulders, she closes his fingers around the smooth surface of the stone. It feels warm in Hector’s palm. “If there is any magic to be found it was likely left by either Aria or myself, and therefore is nothing malicious. I will look into it. It is probably nothing. The stone could be malfunctioning; the spell could be old.”

“Here.” He holds it out to her. “I should never have taken it in the first place.”

“No, no. Keep it. It is yours now.”

The stone continues to hum between his clasped fingers, almost like a heartbeat. Hector leans over to drop it back into the open drawer, closing it once he’s done. A sound from the hallway catches their attention. Footsteps. Iri smiles slightly.

“I believe that would be the castle’s master on his way back.”

“Aria, is she—”

“She is well enough. Comfortable, if a bit restless. Cezar is keeping watch over her now.” One of her hands neatly tucks a wayward lock of hair behind his ear. “I am sure she would appreciate a visit from you later, if you are feeling up to it.”

Hector does not quite respond. As much as he would like to see Aria, to spend the rest of the day at her bedside making sure for himself that she is healing and whole, he makes no promises. Iri does not press him, and for that he is grateful.

She leaves him just before Adrian appears in the open doorway. With him he carries a large, steaming mug in one hand and a few books and papers under his arm. The sight of him alone is enough to inspire a rush of emotion deep in the wells of Hector’s chest. His eyes follow as Adrian crosses the room to him.

“I wasn’t sure which you would prefer,” he explains, lifting up the books and documents. “I took a couple of books from your stack in the library, as well as some of your data from the labs. I heard you say a few nights ago you still needed to look through it.”

The smell of the mug’s contents reaches him before Adrian places it in his hands. Hot, fragrant black tea mixed with a spoonful of honey and a splash of lemon juice. Hector holds it close to his face, lets the steam wash over him as he sits up in his bed. He takes a cautious first sip, relishes the burn of it on his tongue as it chases away the chill.

“I owe you an apology.”

Adrian’s brows furrow. He places the books on top of the blankets, lowering himself to the empty side of the bed. “What for?”

_ You don’t want me anymore. _ His own voice screeches back at him through a memory made hazy by tears and sleeping medicine. The anguish on Adrian’s face after he’d said it haunts him, as though Hector had just accused him of something despicable. It _ aches. _

“For my behavior last night.” Hector guiltily hides his eyes. “When you…” He fumbles for the words. “When you refused the first time, I should have left it alone. You didn’t deserve any of the things I said to you.”

“You were hurt,” Adrian says. “After everything you had to hear in that cell, I cannot blame you.”

“None of it excuses the way I spoke to you. I was hurt, yes, but you only ever tried to look after me. To be kind to me.” The mug in his hands suddenly feels very heavy. “I’m sorry.”

Adrian looks at him for a long while. His eyes are beautiful in the dimmed light of the autumnal sun. They flicker over every inch of Hector, scrutinizing even as they reassure him. Almost as if Adrian has the power to absolve him of every wrong with a mere glance.

Wordlessly, he leans closer. His lips find the crown of Hector’s head and he leaves a tender kiss there. His hand lingers at the bend of his elbow, the floral scent of his soap filling Hector’s lungs as he breathes. He finds himself wishing Adrian would aim for his mouth next, or his neck. The sudden longing to be close nearly breaks him.

“Drink your tea,” Adrian tells him in a hushed whisper. He smiles benevolently. Hector thinks what he means to say is _ thank you. _

Hector drinks his tea. When he is finished, he fits himself in at Adrian’s side, rests his head over his softly beating heart as Adrian parses through his patient’s logs. Blue eyes follow the scratching of the pen as he writes, following the endless and elegant looping motions of his handwriting.

Adrian’s arm finds its way around him, and as Hector closes his eyes, his last thoughts before drifting back to sleep are of tea-warm hands and orange blossom soap.

* * *

A week passes them by, blessedly without any further noticeable incident. Swift autumn winds help to usher in the days with brisk efficiency before putting them to bed with frigid, fierce gales that rattle the castle’s windows. Hector spends the following seven days watching it all from behind those cold glass panes. The dread that has become his closest companion this past year, despite its best efforts, begins to abate.

At night, Adrian takes an hour or so to survey the woods surrounding the estate, disappearing in a flash of white fur as the sun sinks. When he returns, slips into bed beside Hector and murmurs that there is nothing out there, Hector takes his freezing hands between his own to warm them. He knows Adrian is not bothered by the cold but he does it all the same, curling his fingers around Adrian’s own pale ones, blowing warm breath over his knuckles. When the nightmares come, he no longer faces them alone. Adrian is there to wake him, to gently coax him back into reality where nothing awaits him save for golden eyes and capable arms.

Most of his time he devotes to Aria’s recovery. Between him, her sister, and Adrian’s treatment, she wants for very little in terms of care. The strength returns to her in measured increments, although it is a process. The stitches come out eventually, and while she can stand and walk a few steps without aid she has still been condemned to yet more bedrest.

That, unsurprisingly, has come with its own complications.

He is in the hallway one afternoon, having returned from a morning in the laboratory, when the lulling quiet is splintered by a sharp shattering sound against the sisters’ door. It is accompanied by shouting, the familiar cadence of their mother tongue muffled through the wood. Hector quickens his footsteps to see what the uproar is about, and as he reaches their room Iri darts out into the hall, slamming the door shut behind her.

“What is the matter?” he asks her, and he is greeted with her scowling face, her small mouth set in a terse line. “Did something break?”

Iri sighs heatedly. “She is throwing a _ tantrum.”_

“Oh.” Hector swallows thickly, stunned, not entirely sure of what to say. “Um. Should I—”

“If you think you can fare any better then by all means, be my guest. I believe I have had my fill for now.” She turns on her heel, the soles of her shoes loud against the floor.

When she is gone, Hector turns to face the door. It is quiet on the other side now but instead of reassuring him it only serves to make him more worried. Taking a few seconds to gather a small amount of courage, he raises his fist to knock.

There is no reply from the room within.

Hector waits. Nearly a minute goes by before he knocks again, louder, more insistent. He nearly knocks a third time, but just before he does he hears a warbled and defeated “come in.”

Upon opening the door, he finds the source of the noise. The scattered remains of a porcelain water pitcher litter the floor, drowning in a small puddle. He sidesteps them to enter the room, careful not to disturb any of it. Aria is still in her bed, curled around one of the larger pillows there. Her face is half buried in it.

“Aria?”

Instead of a response he gets the cold brunt of her shoulder. She tries to hide her glistening eyes in the bed linens but he can already tell the pillowcase is damp with tears.

“Aria, what’s wrong?”

“You need not hover at my bedside every waking moment of the day, Hector!” she snaps. The bitterness in her words stuns him. “I am perfectly capable of wasting away here in this room on my own, thank you very much. I do not need you, or Adrian, and I certainly do not need Iri to keep vigil over me as I do it.”

The tirade is punctuated with a valiant sniffle that she tries to stifle in her sleeve. Hector blinks in the silence that follows. A note of hurt swells in his throat at the dismissal. “I see.” He takes a step back. “I… would you like me to leave, then?”

There is a pause, heavy in the air between them. Aria lifts her head. Her lips fall in a sad, pitiful sulk. “No.” She wipes at her wet face. “No, please stay. I am sorry.”

Hector sits warily at the edge of the bed. He waits for her to emerge from the tiny ball she’s knotted herself into at the center of the blankets. It is a slow process, but eventually Aria drags herself up to lean back against the headboard, though the pillow is still kept firmly hugged against her chest.

“Please don’t tell Adrian I broke his pitcher,” she mutters. “I can fix it.”

Hector tries to smother a smile. “I won’t say a word, if you tell me what happened.”

A few loaded moments pass before Aria gives a short huff into the corner of her pillow. She turns her head to the side. “Iri and I had an argument.”

“Yes, I heard. What about?”

“… She told me she plans to return to the Belmont hold, to research something. I wanted to go with her. I am tired of being stuck in here; I feel _ useless _in this bed.”

“I suppose she said no to that?”

“Of course she did.” The tears return. Great, bubbling dewdrops that dampen her lashes before they spill over her cheeks. “If she had her way she would see me locked in a castle for the rest of my life, tucked away and kept from the world and anything I might find in it.”

“Now, I’m sure that’s not true.” Aria rolls her misty eyes. Hector pretends not to see. “She simply wants to make sure you recover. Adrian said a few more days’ rest and you should be well enough to wander the castle on your own again.”

“A few more days confined to this room, while the rest of you go about your lives. I hate this. It reminds… reminds me of…”

Aria does not finish that thought. She claws her fingers over her shoulder as though to touch her back. A sob catches in her throat, more tears slipping free as she shudders. Another follows it. Her ribs stutter as she weeps and she whimpers, a hand flying towards the side where he knows the still-healing wound lies.

“Please don’t cry.” Hector moves to get up. “Let me fetch you something for the pain—”

“I don’t want it!” She stubbornly shakes her head. “I am _ sick _ of poppies, I am sick of this bed, and I am sick to death of staring out that window from in here.”

The hem of her linen blouse is lifted up to reveal the half-mended starburst of skin over her ribs. Hector nearly opens his mouth to warn her against touching it, but he thinks better of it at the last second. Aria prods delicately around the red cut of what will probably become an extensive scar. Much of the bruising has faded, but the grisly brocade of inky black veins persists where the iron is still working its way through her body. He had asked once whether she could simply heal it away herself.

“No,” had been her answer. “The iron rejects the magic. That is part of the reason it is so dangerous. There is nothing to be done for it but to wait.”

That waiting, it seems, has turned out to be more of an obstacle than anticipated.

Hector stands up. The curtains over the aforementioned window part as he pulls them open, bathing the both of them in a bright rinse of color. It chases the shadows from Aria’s moping face, draws her reluctant gaze from the floor. He can see the daylight glimmering from within the depths of her strange eyes.

“It is a beautiful day.” He shrugs nonchalantly, not missing the “hmph,” from the other side of the room. “Perhaps we should go for a walk?”

_ That _ manages to get her attention. Aria’s head snaps in his direction, the put-upon indifference vanishing as she stares him down, almost like she expects this to be some sort of trick. “Iri and Adrian said—”

“Iri and Adrian do not necessarily need to know,” Hector counters. “Just a short walk. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“What about the stairs? I’m not sure I can navigate them on my own.”

“I can carry you.”

While she does not seem overly thrilled at the thought, it appears the allure of the chance to go outside overthrows her trepidation. “All right.” Aria slings the sheets out of her way. “Let’s go for a walk, then.”

Hector helps her into some warmer clothes. She can’t quite bend at the waist to pull her boots on so he kneels to do it for her. Thoroughly wrapped in a sturdy cloak and the shawl he had all but been forced to relinquish days ago, he deems her ready for the outdoors.

As they reach the threshold of the door, Aria bids him to wait. She wordlessly lowers herself to the mess of the broken pitcher, and with a quiet murmur the broken shards of china whirl back together as if they’d never come apart in the first place. All that is left behind is a tiny pool of water on the floorboards, already drying in the sunlight. Hector puts the pitcher back in its matching basin, and then they are gone.

So long as their pace is slow and Hector provides her the aid of his arm, Aria seems to have no trouble walking. The stairs, however, do prove to be too much of a challenge. She manages about three on her own before she relents to being carried, though it is not done happily. Hector shoulders the grumbling pout he receives for it with a measure of good humor.

They nearly make it all the way to the great hall undetected, speaking in a stealthy whisper as they go more for the spirit of the endeavor than any hope of passing by unnoticed. Adrian can probably hear them from anywhere in the castle, and should Iri be anywhere nearby Hector doubts he could spirit her sister away without alerting her. It seems they get away with it, too, as they round the corner to the final set of stairs.

That is, of course, until they almost stumble face-first into Sypha.

“Jesus,” she breathes, jumping at the sight of them. Her arms are full of scrolls. “Hector, I didn’t hear you. You nearly scared me out of my skin!”

He grimaces. “Sorry.”

“Oh.” Sypha’s gaze falls to the girl he still carries. Her face cracks into a friendly grin. “Oh, hello there. I believe I know who you are, though we haven’t been introduced yet.”

Aria looks up at her, lips parted to say something in response but nothing comes. Her eyes widen. Hector watches, bewildered, as a bright flush climbs over her skin from the base of her throat to the tips of her ears, painting her an aggressive shade of pink. It happens so quickly that he worries for a moment about her health. He presses the back of his hand to her forehead, and while he can detect no spike in temperature, the color at her cheeks deepens considerably.

“Are you all right?” he asks her.

“Yes,” Aria snaps in response, “I am fine.” His brows furrow, unsure how to interpret her strange behavior.

The small arms looped around his neck tighten so fiercely it nearly chokes him.

“I’m Sypha.” She holds her hand out. It takes Aria a few moments to register that she is supposed to shake it. As she does she says something Hector thinks is supposed to be her own name though her voice cracks so violently it’s almost unrecognizable. Sypha tilts her head in confusion. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Aria,” she croaks. “My name is Aria.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Aria.”

“We’re going out for a walk,” Hector explains. “It was supposed to be a bit of a secret.”

“I see. In that case, I won’t tell anyone.” Sypha holds a finger to her lips, throwing a wink to Aria. Hector thinks he can feel her deflate a bit in his arms. “Actually, if you don’t mind, would it be all right if I joined you? This castle is starting to feel a bit stuffy.”

He nods, meaning to accept her offer but Aria beats him to it. “Yes, you should come with us,” she stammers, and Sypha beams.

“Great!” She gestures at her scrolls. “Let me put these away and we’ll be off, hm?”

As much as he treasures the security and uncanny sense of home he has grown to find in Castlevania, Hector cannot deny the unparalleled peace that comes with the warmth of unhindered sunlight on his face. The weather is cool, but the midday sun is enough to keep the chill at bay for now. He can feel the same kind of joy resonating from Aria as he puts her down. She seems to unfurl in the fresh air, shoulders dropping as the tension drains from them. Hector sees her face lift towards the sky and its endless blue, and it makes him smile.

He is relieved to see the rain has long since washed away the blood .

He and Sypha exchange idle, polite conversation as the three of them walk. The autumn breeze playfully tosses their hair and their clothes the same as it does the yellowing leaves at the tops of the trees. The scent of it as it ripples through the verdant needles of the evergreens, pine and water and dark earth, cleanses the air around them. Sypha takes a long, deep breath of it.

“It’s so lovely out here,” she sighs. “Autumn always was my favorite time of year, even if it does get so windy. I think I needed this.”

Hector cannot help but to agree; in a way, he thinks they all three might have needed this.

Somewhere amidst the conversation, Aria wanders off toward the treeline. Hector watches her from the castle grounds. When she reaches the forest, she kneels to sit in the grass, leaning on the weathered trunk of a tall oak. The image of her there, tiny and fragile where she is curled among the roots, is strikingly lonely.

“Excuse me,” he says to Sypha before he follows.

Aria pays him almost no mind as he takes a seat beside her. Absorbed as she is in their surroundings, her head rests against the bark of the tree. Several minutes pass as they sit in companionable silence, the only sounds being those of the wind rustling the branches overhead and the occasional songbird whistling somewhere in the wood. Aria blinks slowly against the sunshine where it falls over her face in a dappled halo.

“It is quiet out here.”

Hector leans back on his palms. “It’s quiet in the castle.”

“Not like this. This is a different sort of quiet.”

There is truth to the sentiment, he finds. He can’t quite put it into words, but there is a discernible contrast to the muted, even morbid at times, stillness found in Castlevania’s halls and the vivid serenity that saturates the world around them.

“Have you ever been homesick, Hector?”

He turns to meet her eyes. That is a difficult question to answer. Home had always been a tricky concept for him to grasp. He’d had a home with his parents, as much as he’d like to forget it. He’d had a home in Rhodes. While he had yearned to be gone from Styria, he’d never really imagined there’d be somewhere for him to return to, not even Dracula’s castle. When the Wallachian weather grew cold he would long for the warm summers of Greece, but not enough to consider going back. Not enough to leave what he has found here.

“No,” he tells her, his voice soft even to his own ears. “No, I don’t suppose so. Have you?”

“... Yes, I have. I _ am.” _Aria toys with the hem of the shawl around her shoulders. Another persistent tear glistens on her cheek. “I miss Il Mheg. I miss the palace, and spending time at court. I miss my dresses. I miss my bedroom. I miss my mother.” That part comes out in a whisper, as though simply uttering it is admitting to some odd form of guilt. “I miss my…”

One of her hands claws at the back of her shoulder.

“Have you talked to Iri about it?”

Aria scoffs. “No. I couldn’t; she never wanted for me to come with her in the first place. The only reason she ever agreed to bring me along was because I caught her trying to leave. I told her if she did not take me with her, then I would shout for the guards so neither of us could go.” She swallows thickly. “I think she still resents me for that. I could never tell her I think about going back. Not that I could anyway.”

“Why not?”

“For the same reason we left.” She sniffs, wiping at her eyes with the side of her palm. “Well, part of it anyway. It is so, so exhausting to have everyone you have ever known and loved look at you and only see the parts of you that are _ missing. _If we had stayed, I think I would have gone mad.”

It breaks his heart. An ache lodges itself between his lungs at the sight of her tears, the need to soothe them away almost an instinct. Hector wishes he had an answer for her, a simple string of words that could erase all the sorrow that shrouds her now. He reaches out for her tiny hand, relieved when she bequeaths it to him.

“For what it is worth, I am glad we met.” He means it. Besides the fact that the two of them rescued him from Styria, besides the fact they have saved his life time and time again, besides the fact that for the first time in his life Hector has found people he can call his family, he is simply happy they ever found him. “And I am certain Iri has never once regretted having you by her side. No matter what she says.”

Aria stares at him with her great, green eyes. Her lower lip quivers with another fresh wave of tears. “Thank you.”

The wind blows. The birds call. The trees stand guard. The world continues to turn around them, and as Hector holds her hand Aria squeezes his back.

When her tears have nearly dried, he looks back to Sypha somewhere in the grass behind them. She has spread herself out over the ground as she waits for them, lying on her back as she watches the clouds overhead. An idea strikes him then.

“You mentioned you miss your dresses.” Aria blinks wetly at him. “I’d wager if you asked, Sypha would accompany you to the village. Adrian tells me there’s a seamstress there.”

The blush returns at full force. She tries to hide her glowing face against the tree. It does not work. Eventually she emerges from her sudden fit of bashfulness, the source of which he is still not entirely sure of, and purses her lips in thought. “... How many do you suppose I would be allowed to ask for?”

“I’m not sure.” Hector smirks. “Perhaps we might just empty Dracula’s coffers and buy up every dress in Wallachia. One for each of us.”

“Hm. I think Adrian would look very pretty in a dress. Don’t you?”

And then it is Hector’s turn to blush.

He helps Aria to her feet, relishing the feeling of her fingers settling into the spaces between his own. Together they make their way back to Sypha to join her in her skywatching. The color in Aria’s cheeks does not fade, but he makes no more mention of it. Together the three of them while away the afternoon, and as Hector listens to Sypha and Aria begin to form a timid friendship, he feels lighter than he thinks he might have in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!!!! Please leave me a comment with your thoughts, I LOVE seeing them!!
> 
> Irish translations:
> 
> _Tá brón an domhain orm:_ I am so sorry.


	29. PartXXIX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this chapter took so long to come out!!!! I hope what's in it makes up for that :))))))
> 
> By the way, if you like modern AU's I have one in progress! You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616130/chapters/56674912) if you want to read it! I'm currently working on the next chapter, so it's not been abandoned!!!!!
> 
> Thank you to moonstone-mama for beta reading and blindwolfgrasshopper for the help!
> 
> If any of you are interested, I've made a playlist to go with this fic. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvWXsZ8Kjya7rEO_XOiXFWpkXm2n4YxS).

It would seem logical, perhaps, that Dracula would have spent no small effort in preparing his heir as future master of his castle and his legacy. Adrian’s inheritance was vast, and his life so far merely the blink of an eye in comparison to his father’s centuries. Castlevania was the culmination of Dracula’s life’s work; innovation of design the likes of which the world has never seen. So much knowledge lost to time is preserved inside its cavernous halls, magic and technology and history learned and forgotten hundreds of times over. Surely it followed that the man who had spent so long hoarding this wealth of knowledge would take it upon himself to share it with his one and only son.

It would shock many to learn that this was not exactly the case.

This castle is the only home Adrian has ever known. He was born within its walls, nurtured by its shadows, enlightened by its archives. The castle had almost as much of a hand in raising him as both of his parents. It has known the tears of his infancy, his childhood nightmares, his adolescent tantrums, and all of the lessons he’d learned as he grew. Castlevania is a part of him. It is every bit as convoluted, as dangerous, and as beautiful as Dracula’s son himself.

That said, the castle has its own secrets and its former master kept a number of them in death.

Dracula had seen to it he was educated: history, philosophy, magic, the arts, and, of course, science. At not even twenty-one years of age, Adrian is a fully trained physician. He is fluent in all of the romantic languages and passable in several more. He once had been able to play the harp beautifully enough to bring his mother to tears, though is undoubtedly far out of practice by now. He is a skilled engineer, having constructed the haven beneath Gresit with next to no aid. It was not a question as to his aptitude in being taught; it was a question in what his father chose not to share.

Adrian supposes his father simply assumed he had all the time left to the world to teach him everything. Presumably there would have been the rest of eternity for him to instruct Adrian in the intricacies of the hulking structure he’d built and curated himself, given their immortal lifespans and the ever-changing nature of the world around them. Perhaps a part of him still selfishly held his secrets close, a dragon guarding his hoard after knowing nothing but centuries of solitude. Perhaps he had thought Adrian simply wasn’t ready for much of it. Perhaps he had been planning to and just never got around to it.

In any case, he thinks, knelt on the floor in Dracula’s study amongst slivered shards of a broken mirror, it hardly matters now, does it?

As a child, he had been forbidden from touching so many things in the castle. The mirrors had been among them. His father had a number of them, all used for different purposes. As well as the one in the study, there had been an enormous one kept in a greater library several floors up. Adrian knew of a couple in the lower laboratories, even a matching pair in a tiny tower that was far too easy to miss.

He could use none of them.

The Carpathian mirror they’d uncovered beneath the Belmont manse was different from those of his father’s. The glyphs that powered its magic had been carved into the gilded frame. All Adrian had needed to do was repair whatever damage had obscured them, whether faded by time or deliberate human intervention, and then their meaning was easily parsed. His father’s mirrors had no such runes. That was because Dracula himself inscribed them each time he sought their use.

On several occasions, Adrian had seen his father at work with them though try as he might he could not infer the method to it. Plainly put, he did not recognize the languages they responded to. Dracula never named them, and Adrian never learned them. If he ever asked, his father would artfully avoid his questions, claiming that someday when Adrian was older he would show him. It was, sadly, a promise his father had proven unable to keep. That day never came to be.

This is how he came to be here, hunched over the glinting shards of magical glass strewn over the rug like an elaborate puzzle. There are several open tomes surrounding him in a neat circle. He has yet to pinpoint just which language the mirror responds to, and progress is slow going.

Enochian had been the most obvious, which is why it had been the first Adrian was able to rule out. He’d tried Adamic on a similar whim, remembering what Sypha had said about the Belmont mirror, but he was not as familiar with it as she is and similarly gets nowhere with it. Adrian considers Celestial, ancient Greek, and a few different magic variants of Hebrew. Sylvan even crosses his mind, knowing it to be notoriously tedious and temperamental in exactly all the ways his father would have appreciated.

Several days of this have led him to where he is now: frustrated, worn thin, and at the end of his academic rope. Adrian is on the verge of closing his books and resigning himself to continuing this vein of research on another day, perhaps with Sypha’s help, or even Aria if he could persuade her to sit still for long enough. The aid of a Seelie Court mage was nothing to snub his nose at, and Sypha’s education in arcane alphabets far exceeded his own.

Even _ dhampir _ stamina is not enough to soothe the tension building between his temples. It is nearly dusk and Adrian realizes halfway through another line of untranslated text that he cannot even remember _ which _particular language he is meant to be reading, much less what any of it means. His eyes are beginning to cross of their own accord when a soft knock at the open study door pulls him out of his nest of time-stained parchment and silver-backed glass.

The sight that greets him as he looks up does away with all of that in the span of a single moment. Adrian lifts his head towards the unannounced visitor and smiles.

“Sorry; I know you’re busy,” Hector murmurs apologetically, adjusting his arms around a fine, crystal vase. Adrian shakes his head, as though none of the work he’s accomplished in the past few days means anything. Compared to the man in the hall, it indeed means very little.

“Not too busy.” Adrian begins to mark his place in each book before quickly flipping them shut, eager to be done with them for the time being. “I was nearly ready to give it up for the night anyway. What’s that you’ve got, there?”

“Well.” Hector glances down towards his burden, face partially obscured by the exquisite bouquet of freshly cut roses nestled expertly into their new glittering vessel. The evening light catches in its facets, throwing tiny shards of rainbows everywhere. “Aria and I finished winterizing the garden this afternoon. These will be the last of the year.”

Adrian stands, carefully stepping around the mess he’s made. The perfume of the flowers has already claimed the room, and even still he bows his head to sample them himself, their petals soft against the tip of his nose. There were similarly filled vases dotted throughout different rooms of the castle, Hector’s efforts to put the abundance of the season’s final harvest to good use. This particular bouquet is the finest he’s seen so far.

Adrian breathes in. He meets Hector’s eyes. “Lovely.”

If Hector catches the inferred sentiment, he does not let on. “I would have brought them sooner while the sun was still out, but Sypha asked for a pitcher full of whatever was left over and I had the time.”

“We’ll put them by the window, then.” Adrian takes the vase from him. The crystal is still glistening in some places with fat beads of water. “I’ll leave the curtains open so they get plenty of light in the morning.”

“Wait.”

Before Adrian turns away, Hector reaches into the bouquet. A few seconds of rifling through the blooms and he comes away with one. One of the centermost roses, the most magnificent out of all of them. The petals are splayed in a full cup, its stem long and wreathed in verdant leaves. The color is a luxurious, rich red, so dark it almost could be mistaken for black in the evening gloom. Its beauty puts the other flowers to shame.

Hector holds it out to him. “This one is for you.”

Suddenly, none of the roses in the vase are nearly so precious to him as the one he is being offered now. He holds it to his nose, and somehow its fragrance is sweeter than all the rest. Hector had chosen this one specifically with him in mind. Adrian wonders if he had agonized over it, searched through every rose in his garden for the perfect one. Or, maybe he’d had his eye on this one for a while. Maybe he’d known the moment it had bloomed, that this one was destined for Adrian.

He hides the stupid, lovesick grin behind its petals.

“I was beginning to wonder,” he says, teasing, “if I was ever going to receive any of the flowers in that garden. I’ve only spent all summer kissing the gardener.”

Despite what Adrian can tell are his best efforts, Hector blushes. He turns his face to hide it but the tips of his ears give him away. “I could always take it back, if you’ve changed your mind.” There is a smile stifled beneath the words. Adrian sidles up beside him, watching Hector’s hands as they straighten the rest of the bouquet in its vase.

“Hm. You could try.”

“Perhaps Sypha might appreciate it more.”

“I doubt that. She’ll have to settle with the leftovers.” He taps his rose against Hector’s cheek. “This one is mine.”

Hector makes a move to grab for it, but his fingers close around empty air as Adrian snatches it back. Hector scoffs fondly, though he leans in as Adrian rests his chin against his shoulder. “If I didn’t know any better I would call you ungrateful.”

“Kiss me, and I shall be as grateful as you like.”

Hector hooks him in by the collar of his shirt, planting a brief kiss to his incorrigible mouth. Adrian feels something inside his chest come loose, a thread escaped from its cross stitch, and all he wants is to unravel. Hector goes back to his flowers and Adrian’s arms fall about his waist. He lazily drifts closer, until their hips knock against each other, and bestows another kiss to the rise of Hector’s cheekbone. It earns him a voiceless chuckle.

“You’re in a mood today.”

“I have missed you,” he offers in explanation.

“I haven’t gone anywhere, Adrian. Just outside in the garden.”

“And I have missed you.”

Hector’s eyes fall to the mess he’s made of the floor, all of the books and notes and scraps of parchment sprawled every which way. He does not ask about what progress he’s made, and Adrian knows why. Utilized properly and his father’s mirror could summon forth an image of any place on Earth. One simply needed to know how to ask. It was not lost on any of them that it could be an invaluable tool in spying on certain castles in certain Austrian provinces, and certain regional rulers therein.

Adrian thinks back to the leather pouch hidden in the drawers of his desk, filled with a vampire’s ashes almost a month cold and sealed with a scout’s brooch. He has not yet finished composing the letter for the scout’s former mistress, but he will. He hasn’t told Hector just what he means to say to her, but he will. There are reparations to be paid, demands to be made, warnings to be issued, and if Carmilla means to refuse them then she and hers will pay in blood.

But those are concerns for another day. For now, Adrian’s study smells of flowers. The sun is beginning to sink below the horizon. Hector is warm and safe in his arms, and he is so happy he feels as though he might come apart with it.

“Thank you,” he whispers near Hector’s ear. “For the rose. It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“I love it.”

Together they begin the process of putting everything away for the night; Hector helps him mark his place in each book, stacking them in front of the shelves by the wall. He does not attempt to read any of them.

“Come with me?” Adrian asks him when they are done. “There is something I want to show you.”

“Can it wait?” Hector fidgets with the hem of his shirt, grimacing at the way it sticks to his skin with half-dried perspiration from that afternoon. “I was rather looking forward to a bath after spending all day outside.”

“It will only take a moment.” He holds out his hand. Hector takes it.

He leads them into a portion of the castle he’s not sure Hector has ever visited before. He himself has not been here in a long time. Not since his mother was still alive. The stone gives way to great panels of glass, tucked neatly into a hidden, enclosed courtyard. Adrian unlocks the double doors that open to the inside.

Hector’s eyes widen as they take in the domed ceiling, the rows and shelves of neglected plants, the glare of the sun through walls of dirty glass. His fingers slacken around Adrian’s. For a few seconds, Adrian watches him as his gaze flickers around the space.

“What is this place?”

“The greenhouse.” He sweeps away a great swathe of dust from one of the tables before hopping up to sit on it. “For cultivating plants, no matter the season.”

“I… How—”

“It’s climate controlled. The temperature and humidity can be adjusted, and the glass lets in the sun. My mother grew her medicinal reagents here.”

“To think, an entire structure dedicated to letting in sunlight here in Dracula’s castle. Incredible.”

Hector wanders toward an alcove filled with small potted specimens. His hands hover over them, many brown and withered, left to fend for themselves without anyone to tend to them. He touches one of them, something that looks to have at one point been a robust aloe plant. Adrian’s heart stutters at the way his fingers card through the leaves. “Why are we here?” he asks. “Why show this to me?”

“I want to give it to you.”

His head turns back towards Adrian. “Give it to me?”

“Yes. I thought it would be an adequate substitute for the garden during the colder months. You and Aria could grow your flowers here, and we should be able to start cultivating ingredients for new medicines. If that’s something you think you’d like.”

Hector crosses the room towards him. He sets the aloe down on the table, tucks a hand over his mouth as though he’s not quite sure what to say. His eyes flit from Adrian to the rest of the room. “This was your mother’s,” he murmurs earnestly. “And you would give it to me?”

_ I would give you everything, _he does not say, though it is a very near thing.

“Yes.” His voice grows thick with emotion until it feels heavy in his throat. It is easy to forget, at times, about the grief that very nearly swallowed him whole not so long ago. It still hurts to think of her, and also of his father. Adrian has so far been able to fool himself into thinking he’s grown adept at hiding it but here, in his mother’s greenhouse, this tiny glimpse of that pain is bare for the world to see. “I think… this is what she would have wanted. She would be proud to know someone is picking up where she left off.”

Garden-worn knuckles graze at his cheek. Adrian looks up and is met with perhaps the softest smile he has ever seen. The hard angle of Hector’s hip meets his thigh as he comes closer. The silence he offers Adrian is not awkward, or tense, or for lack of anything to say. It is a respectful deference to his grief. A sudden rush of affection grips him, like a bonfire lit within the depths of his chest.

“Thank you.” Hector’s thumb glides over the contours of his face. “Truly.”

In lieu of words, Adrian tilts his head forward for a kiss. Hector meets him halfway. It feels like an eternity has passed since they were afforded this: a quiet moment to themselves, alone in the twilight. Their hardships will surely catch up to them on the morrow, but not now. Not here.

One kiss gives way to another, and then another. The leisurely shift of Hector’s lips over his grows that much more wistful. It feels deep and insistent in ways that speak to the long afternoons they had known that summer, when there was nothing better they could possibly think to do besides to _ touch. _Adrian skates his fingertips over Hector’s throat to feel for the hitch in his pulse, imagining that it matches that of his own.

“Adrian.” The hot slide of Hector’s tongue in his mouth as he whispers the syllables of his name tastes like begging. Adrian sighs into it, chases after him even as he continues to speak. “I want you. Please, let me—”

“Yes,” he breathes, “yes, god, anything. Anything you want.”

Hector takes him by the waist and yanks him to the edge of the table. It sends a lazy tingle up his spine. Adrian spreads his thighs so Hector might fit better between them, draws him in until there is no space left to separate them. There is only heat, and need, and far too many clothes in the way.

Nothing about any of it feels graceful; their knees knock together, elbows narrowly miss tender ribs, and neither of them think to slow down. Adrian feels like a man starved, newly sat down at a feast while aching to be devoured himself. Hector leaves his mouth for his throat, and Adrian holds him by the nape of his neck, caught between the urge to pull him back up or to lose himself to it.

Hector’s nails catch over his skin in his haste to pull Adrian’s shirt off, baring the pale stretch of his body. He actually takes a second to ball it up before he prompts Adrian to lie back over the table, his shirt acting as a makeshift pillow below his head. Adrian laughs quietly at him, the hushed sound falling delicately around them.

“The table’s dusty,” Hector insists by way of an explanation. He’s blushing again. “I didn’t… your hair—”

“Hang the dust.” 

He grins. Adrian sits up by a fraction. He palms the front of Hector’s trousers to curl his fingers over his cock, delighting at the sweet little sound it earns him. Hector swells in his hand. His hips jerk forward when Adrian squeezes, gently, thumb playing at his tip through the fabric.

“Adrian.” He bites at his name like he would a curse, teeth digging into his lip even as he continues to chase the hand toying with him. “You,” another thrust, “are being,” another, this one powerful enough to knock him back, his head meeting the bunched up linen below, _ “greedy.” _

He laughs again, doing little to hide the self-satisfied angle of his answering smirk. On his way back down he grabs at the back of Hector’s shirt to rip it away as he goes. He _ feels _greedy. There is a fire smoldering in the pit of his stomach, flaring higher with each move Hector makes, every touch, every noise. He tears Adrian’s hand away, pulls his legs farther apart to grind down against him. Adrian arches into it, his mouth falling open in a stalled gasp as pleasure races through him, adding fuel to the flames licking up his insides.

The sun slips further down towards the horizon, and as it does Adrian looks up to Hector above him. The blazing evening light filtering through the glass walls behind them frames him in a luminous halo. It falls over him like a curtain, alighting on the deep, rich timbre of his skin until he looks golden. He is beautiful, gilded and shot through with clear, ethereal blue. Adrian trembles as he stares, suddenly paralyzed by the sight before him. Hector offers him a slow, lusty smile, pearls on a bed of silk, and only then does Adrian allow himself the room to breathe.

The smell of Hector floods his senses, and while he’s never been drunk Adrian thinks it might be similar to this. Living salt and clean, cold air from a day spent under the sun, mixed with loamy earth and the lingering scent of sandalwood oil. It fills his head until he feels heavy with it.

A hand settles over his breastbone, and when Hector kisses down to his belly Adrian grabs for it. He admires the long fingers, covered in small red cuts left behind by the thorns of Hector’s roses as he’d trimmed them away, and the faint traces of soil under the nails. Those clever fingers flex slightly, almost as though to cage the hammering heart below.

“Is this what you were thinking about all day?” Hector murmurs near his navel. His voice sits like spiced honey in Adrian’s ears. “With nothing but your books to keep you company?”

“Mmm, not quite.” The next kiss is laced with teeth. “Though I don’t think I’ll ever live another day without the thought of you between my legs.”

Hector tries to hide the falter in his breathing somewhere near Adrian’s hip, but the flush in his face is harder to conceal. Adrian chuckles quietly. He stops when his breeches are pulled down his thighs and Hector licks a broad stripe up the length of his cock.

There’s almost no finesse to the way Hector sucks at him; it’s been far too long since they last tried this, and his experience is limited besides. It hardly matters. The heat of his mouth is exquisite, doled out in enthusiastic swipes of his tongue. The back of Adrian’s head again meets the shirt bundled beneath him, his ribs shuddering under Hector’s palm as he gasps for air. The urge to reach out and tangle his fingers in the silver curls at his head strikes him. Adrian drives it back, instead choosing to grip at the lip of the table until it creaks under his knuckles.

He would swear hours pass him by like this, helpless to eager lips, but that can’t be right. The sun has barely set. Hector’s kisses veer towards the sensitive crease of his thigh. It’s then that Adrian realizes he’s _ close, _closer than he has any right to be after only a few minutes of fumbling around amidst dusty gardening tools and pots full of neglected plants.

“Come back up here,” he says, tugging at Hector’s wrist. Hector eyes him stubbornly from his place between Adrian’s legs. He drags the soft cushion of his bottom lip against the underside of his cock. Adrian whimpers.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He nods urgently, even as his hips roll up to slide the wet head of his dick over Hector’s cheek. As much as he would like nothing more than to lie back and let Hector have his way with him, he’s not quite sure how to broach the very real risk he could end up coming in his mouth.

Hector surges up to kiss him. In his haste he meets one of Adrian’s fangs a little too quickly. The familiar taste of his blood floods Adrian’s palate. His entire body throbs with it. He reins in the instinct to bite down, a startled noise of concern caught somewhere in his throat. When he tries to pull back Hector chases him, refusing to let up until Adrian relents, gives in to the temptation to latch on and drink him down. The likelihood that this has any effect on Hector himself is small, but even those few drops make everything that much more intense. 

A hand snakes down to wrap around him, stroking painstakingly from root to tip. Adrian thrusts up into the soft heat of Hector’s belly as he settles over top of him. The bony cradle of Hector’s hips meets the back of his thighs each time he moves and suddenly it’s all he can think about. He can feel him, hard through the confines of his clothes, digging in each time Adrian twists to get closer.

An overflow of questions pours forth the more Hector touches him, thoughts he’d only ever entertained alone in his sheets without the courage to ask. He wants to know how Hector _ fucks. _ He wants to know what his blood tastes like in the middle of sex. He wonders what he would look like with Adrian’s knees over his shoulders, what sounds he would make, how he would feel _ inside— _

He comes so suddenly it shocks him, rips the moan from his throat and stretches it into something broken and frayed at the edges. The pleasure that takes him feels as though it blisters him from the inside out. He comes with his eyes closed, the light of the setting sun searing him through their lids. He clings to Hector, digs his fingers into his back while he spills into his hand. Hector gently coaxes him through it with a soft exhalation of his name muffled into the side of his neck.

Everything is languid and hazy in the aftermath. Through the shy kisses left over his collarbone, the rosy shimmer of dusk drenching them both, the decadent traces of Hector’s blood behind his teeth, Adrian opens his eyes. He _ shivers. _All of it still feels so fucking good. He’s almost content to lie there, boneless, but the man above him shifts. Hector grinds weakly into him, still torturously hard within the confines of his clothes, and through the satiated hum in Adrian’s bones it inspires him to move.

He sits up, kissing Hector soundly as he hops down. Adrian flips them, pins Hector there against the table by the hips, willing him to lean back on his palms. Adrian licks over a stiff, brown nipple just to hear him whine. He locks their eyes together, makes sure Hector is watching before he goes deftly to his knees.

The trousers come undone with little more preamble, though he does not yet pull them away. Adrian can hear Hector hold his breath above him. Coquettishly, he lowers his lashes to the sliver of flesh just over the fabric, where a fine trail of soft, silver hairs descends. Hector is ticklish here, he remembers. He presses his teeth to the skin, lets Hector feel his air. Enjoys the squirm it earns him. As he drags the fabric down Hector’s legs, he bathes every inch of newly revealed skin with the heat of his mouth.

Adrian skims his lips past where Hector wants him most in favor of the subtle jut of his pelvis. The strained, disappointed sigh is sweet, though it fades the closer he comes towards a scarred hip.

He knows Hector hates him to see, hates being reminded of them, and so the kisses he leaves over the raised skin are fleeting, deliberate in not trying to dwell. Adrian will never call them ugly; they are simply a part of Hector now, the same as the freckles over his nose or the color of his eyes. Still, he can sense the tension settling in Hector’s shoulders and creeping up his spine. He does his best to soothe it away.

The tip of his nose draws a line from Hector’s hip to his groin. He smells darker here, heady, masculine. Adrian curls his fingers around him, relishes the thick weight of him in his hand.

“Hector,” he murmurs somewhere near the head, “you have the most beautiful _ cock.” _

Even as he says it blood rushes to his face. It seems silly to be blushing about something as simple as a few words, on his knees as he is before another man. He hears Hector groan for it, feels him jump in his palm. 

He had liked that.

“Jesus, Adrian.”

“I mean it.” A drop of clear fluid beads at the tip, welling for a moment before it slides down the underside. Adrian chases it with his tongue. “Let me prove it to you.”

Hector’s knuckles turn white where they sit over the edge of the table when Adrian finally opens his mouth. He bobs his head quickly once, letting Hector feel the curl of his tongue, the inside of his cheek, the back of his throat. A quick glance up rewards him with the sight of Hector’s flushed face, lip slick and red from the pressure of his teeth digging in, brows drawn tight as he looks down. Adrian pulls his hair back and swallows him down.

He can tell Hector is close. Knows it intimately by the way he breathes, the way he moves. He can’t seem to sit still, his hands scrabbling for purchase while Adrian sucks him, unable to keep them in one place for too long. He goes from clawing at the table to gripping Adrian’s shoulders, lingering at the base of his throat while thumbing at his lips to feel for the fangs beneath. It sends a flash of liquid warmth through him, and even though Adrian’s only just finished himself, seed still cooling over his belly, he flounders.

As much as he likes it, Hector’s hands are _ distracting. _Eventually he grows fed up with it enough that he grabs Hector up by the wrists to still him. Adrian guides them to the back of his head, curls his long fingers in his hair and hopes it’s enough to get the idea across.

For a second he thinks Hector will refuse. Expects him to, even, given his own feelings on having his hair pulled. When he doesn’t let go, Adrian inches forward. The resulting tug at his scalp is faint, timid at best, but it’s enough. He moans filthily around Hector’s cock. It’s almost too gentle, too faint, but it’s there. Adrian can’t help slipping his fingers down the front of his own breeches to touch himself, still spent and soft against his own thigh, legs falling open for Hector to see.

They fall into an unhurried rhythm, Adrian with his mouth and Hector with his body. The first shy thrust of Hector’s hips thrills him. In the short time they’ve dedicated to learning each other this way, Hector hardly ever finds the courage to be selfish about his pleasure in the way most men might be. He would never admit it but Adrian knows he loves this, and to see him give in just this much is so, _ so _gratifying. Adrian leans into the hand at the back of his head and sighs, matching Hector’s unhurried pace.

His grip in Adrian’s hair slackens over time, the barely-there grind of his hips growing more and more restrained. It’s then, Adrian realizes, that Hector is trying his best to hold on.

That will simply not do.

Adrian takes a sharp breath. He palms delicately at Hector’s balls, waiting for the appreciative sound of his name somewhere above him. Hector throbs between his lips, the salt of him flooding Adrian’s tongue one final time. Adrian crooks two of his fingers behind his sac, searching, pressing in and up until—

Hector goes rigid against him, the line of his belly flexing taut as he cries out. The sound rings against the glass walls of the greenhouse. He thrusts on instinct, past Adrian’s molars and into his throat. Caught off guard, it chokes him slightly. He sputters for a moment. Hector immediately withdraws, no doubt worried he’s hurt him. Just before he slips from his mouth, Adrian flattens his tongue over that tight stretch of skin under the head.

“Oh no, don’t, I’m—oh, _ fuck—” _

Hector tries to push him out of the way but he isn’t fast enough. Adrian does not even have time to flinch before the first of it lands over his chin. Hector comes over his cheek, his lower lip, his throat in hot, white streaks. He has the good sense to open his mouth halfway through, doing his best to catch what he can, but it’s too little too late.

The shocked silence that follows is broken by the roaring of Adrian’s own pulse in his ears. His breath is shallow in his chest. He can only imagine what he looks like, pink-cheeked, knees spread wide over the floor and his face covered in come. 

Adrian swallows what had fallen over his tongue.

“I’m sorry,” Hector groans. His hands are thrown over his eyes, almost as though he’s afraid to look at what he’s done to the man kneeling in front of him. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I absolutely didn’t mean to…”

Adrian shudders as he realizes he _ wants _ Hector to look at him, wants him to see what he’s done to him, wants him to see himself painted over his skin. “It’s all right,” he says, breathless. “It’s fine.”

Hector’s hands do not come away from his face. Adrian wants to laugh, because the whole thing is ridiculous, really. The entire endeavor couldn’t have lasted more than fifteen minutes and now they’re half-dressed, wrecked over each other, and, in his own case, newly christened in semen. He suddenly feels giddy, but one look up at the mortified man above him and he does his best to keep it to himself. It hardly matters at all to Adrian, but Hector is clearly still quite upset about the ordeal. Perhaps they’ll be able to laugh about it later, then, when the reminder is not quite literally still plain on his face to see.

Adrian moves to tuck Hector back into his trousers but just before he does he notices that at some point he must have smeared through the mess at his cheek. His cock, not yet fully softened, twitches vainly. Adrian deliberates with himself for all of a few seconds before he opens again to lick him clean.

Hector makes a wounded noise as Adrian engulfs him into the heat of his mouth, twisting helplessly. Adrian keeps the roll of his tongue soft, his lips lax and pliant. Hector squirms against him, torn between dragging Adrian closer for more or climbing the table behind him to escape. Adrian drags a hand over his belly to calm him, admiring the way the intricate musculature of Hector’s abdomen seems to tremble with each flick of his tongue. He can feel every ragged breath as it leaves him, feel his heartbeat at the back of his own throat.

Not long passes before it finally grows to be too much. Hector finally uncovers his eyes to reach for Adrian with a shaky hand, holding him under the jaw. “Adrian, you’ll _ kill _me,” he hisses.

“Sorry.” With one last kiss to the head Adrian pulls away. He does actually tuck Hector away this time, carefully doing up his trousers once he’s done.

The weight of Hector’s eyes over him does not escape him. Adrian makes certain he’s watching attentively before dragging two fingers through the seed at his cheek, holding his gaze as he sucks them clean. He thinks he sees it then, somewhere in that deep wash of blue, that Hector realizes. He blinks at Adrian as the color floods his face.

“You liked it.” He stares as Adrian stands up, reaching for his wrinkled shirt to wipe away the rest with the sleeve. “You liked it when I—”

“I did.” He lays a kiss at Hector’s temple. “And, if you’re lucky, I might let you do it again soon.”

To his surprise, Hector _ laughs_. He again covers his eyes, head bent forward to meet Adrian’s shoulder, and he laughs. Adrian feels it over his skin, little puffs of breath that coincide with the tremor in Hector’s shoulders. It is a precious sound, one he wishes he could capture alongside the bloody orange glow of the sky outside. Hector finally leans back so Adrian gets a good look at his face split wide in a beautiful grin.

He looks so _ happy. _

The smile is infectious. Adrian smothers it into the angle of Hector’s jaw. He pulls him in for another kiss solely for the sensation of his laughter bubbling between their lips, grateful for the weight of Hector’s arms as they wrap around his waist.

He is leaning in to plant his lips below Hector’s right eye when something catches his attention. As the dying sunlight passes through the eye’s lens, it alights on the iris, the gold filtering through the blue. There, just below Hector’s pupil, is a tiny speck of black. It is so small he might never have noticed it save for the strange lighting and his own inhuman sight. Hector notices his sudden concern.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, the laugh still trailing in his tone.

“There’s something in your eye.” Adrian tilts his head for a closer look. The speck is centered directly between the pupil and the edge of the iris, and the more he inspects it he realizes it is not as shapeless as he’d thought. It looks rounded, yet linear, almost like the beginnings of a crescent moon. An incomplete circle growing from both ends as though it means to expand and meet somewhere in the middle.

“What is it?”

“Some kind of spot.” His mind begins to filter through the steps of possible diagnoses. “Does this eye feel different? Any pain, irritation, change in vision?”

“I… no.” Hector blinks, as though trying to confirm for himself what he says is true. “What do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure. If it’s not troubling you, it could simply be nothing. An aberration in the pigmentation; it happens sometimes. It’s just… strange, that we’re only just now seeing it.”

“I’ll look in the mirror later.” Hector shakes his head, seemingly unbothered by the idea. He cups at Adrian’s face, strokes his thumb over his cheek. The angle of his expression pinches in his own concern. “You feel cold.”

“Do I?”

“Only a little, but I can tell.” Hector presses his lips to the corner of Adrian’s mouth, lingers there for a few seconds as though confirming his suspicions. “Do you need blood? How long has it been?”

A touch longer than it should have been, if he is being truthful. He thinks for a moment on what to say and decides an honest answer is probably the best one to give. “Not since the summer.” His heart aches for the guilty ghosts that pass over Hector’s face.

“A long while indeed, then.”

“I’m fine. I promise you. I could have stood to go far longer. I have in the past.”

“Well, you no longer need to.” The wistful glaze to his eyes retreats. Long, tanned fingers trace over the swell of Adrian’s bicep. He shivers as they find the delicate skin at the inside of his elbow. “Perhaps we could make an evening of it?”

Adrian smiles. “Make an evening of it.”

Hector blushes, but does not say anything else, opting to kiss him into acquiescence. When they separate, the sun has sunken halfway down into the encroaching expanse of night.

“I think I shall join you for that bath you mentioned before.”

“Oh?” Hector chuckles.

“Yes, for some odd reason I feel compelled to wash my hair.”

“Ah, the dust—”

“The dust.” Adrian smirks to himself, delicately pulling his tousled hair over one shoulder and purposefully avoiding certain parts of it. He had _ not _ been talking about the dust.

They find Hector’s shirt half-draped over a shelf of yet more dead plants. Adrian does his best to hinder Hector in putting it back on before he leaves, intent on running the water for them while Adrian stays behind to lock up. He insists he won’t be long.

The greenhouse has grown dark in the time that they’ve wasted. While the evening swallows what remains of the sun, Adrian makes sure they haven’t left anything behind. He gathers up his rose, safely tucked away on the other side of the ill-used table, and thinks again that he needs to find a vessel for it before it withers. The aloe plant Hector had found earlier still sits near the window. He picks it up on a whim, thinking to move it somewhere less out of the way, but upon closer inspection, something stops him.

Adrian stares at the little plant, not quite believing what he’s seeing. No one has been in this greenhouse for years. He’d found the key undisturbed in his father’s desk. There has been no one to tend to the specimens since his mother’s death. Two years of neglect had all but destroyed them, and the aloe was no exception. This plant had been, without a doubt, dead when he and Hector walked in as the first visitors to this place since his mother left it for the last time.

Adrian runs his finger over the soft shoot of new, green growth sprouting from otherwise lifeless soil, the exact same spot where Hector’s fingers had touched not a half hour before, and tries to stifle the dread rising within him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!! I hope you guys liked this chapter, and please leave me a comment!!! I love reading them, and if you like to use twitter feel free to follow me there!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://isaidyoulookshitty.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/despommess).


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